


Big Girls Don’t Cry

by HoneyPopped_mp



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: A lot of headcanons (sorry), All Major Character Death is temporary(ish), Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Enemies to Friends, Eventual Found Family, F/M, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Lookin at you Mafia Boss and Snatcher, Occasional Art, Occasionally Unreliable Narrator, PTSD, Pre-Game/Game/Post-Game, Some cut content, Vanessa really shouldn’t be a mom, tags will be updated as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 64,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22248682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyPopped_mp/pseuds/HoneyPopped_mp
Summary: What would happen if your entire childhood was different? If you were raised by a different person, in a different place? Would you be the same person you are now... or someone else entirely?An AHiT AU based on the concept of Hat Kid being raised by Queen Vanessa.
Relationships: Hat Kid & Badge Seller (A Hat in Time), Hat Kid & Cooking Cat (A Hat in Time), Hat Kid & Everyone, Hat Kid & Mustache Girl (A Hat in Time), Hat Kid & Queen Vanessa (A Hat in Time), Hat Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time)
Comments: 150
Kudos: 388





	1. Headache

The Queen had been dozing peacefully when it happened. A muted explosion, followed by a blinding flash of light and then a distinct _thud_ , shaking the floorboards and rattling the frosted-over windows. She awoke with a start, never a heavy sleeper. 

“ **WHO _DARES_ DISTURB MY SLUMBER?!” **She shrieked, although more out of habit than anything. She spent the majority of her time patrolling her domain (not physically, of course—using her magic), and rarely had the opportunity for rest, which made any disturbances during her designated sleeping times particularly offending. Not that she really _needed_ sleep, but the witch had grown so delusional over the years that she hadn’t yet realized she was an undead. Besides, it was the only way to avoid her constant headaches, aside from consuming the rare wandering soul.

Reaching out telepathically with her magic, the Queen realized that whatever had caused the disturbance was not actually _within_ her home, but without, and seemed to be rather immobile. And— was it just her, or was the howling of icy, deadly wind louder than usual? The Queen made her way downstairs, only to be further infuriated by the sight that awaited her.

A good chunk of the parlor wall had been blown to bits, although much of the furnishings were thankfully intact, despite being much more... covered in snow than they had been previously. Instantly, blame flickered to that _annoying_ spectre, who _insisted_ he was the ruler of Subcon. Ha! What a joke. She was the _Queen._ However, that train of thought quickly dissipated.

Firstly, he seemed to go out of his way to ensure his “pranks” always left some sort of residue, most predominantly blue flames or deep purple brambles, to make it obvious that HE was the one to blame. Although several planks from the wreckage appeared to be charred, her snowstorm outside had obviously put out the flames, indicating that they by no means belonged to the ghost, or were even magical in nature at all. She had quickly learned from experience (thanks to a certain _SOMEONE_ ) that magical fire, unlike normal fire, was basically immune to water, with a few exceptions, and _EXTREMELY ANNOYING_ to get rid of. Second, his tricks were consistently... over-complicated and complex, not just straight-up destruction of property. She would’ve at least expected _more_ destruction, like her entire house set on fire or something! All in all, she mused, if he HAD blown this hole in her house and this WAS one of his pranks, it was actually pretty underwhelming. And oh, how he HATED being underwhelming.

So then what _had_ created the hole? The shadow was the only (quite literal) thorn in her side, and she couldn’t really think of anyone else who might hold any resentment towards her. Heck, she didn’t even know why _he_ hated her. He had made the first attack, the catalyst for their long-term rivalry! And yet it seemed so much more personal and spiteful than just a _turf war_ , at least to him.

Perhaps it was one of her subjects? No no, impossible. They would _never_ do such a thing to their _Queen_! Besides, everyone loved her! And how could she blame them? She _was_ the personification of beauty, kindness, and wisdom, after all.

Before she could continue wondering just who to blame, however, the Queen noticed a sound coming from the debris. It began as a low wail, then a pitiful cry, and suddenly high-pitched _shrieking,_ almost loud enough to rival her own! Startled, the Queen scuffled over to the hole and peered into the rubble. Inside lay a wailing, squirming _BABY_ , by some miraculous means unscathed even after apparently crashing into A HOUSE with enough force to create a hole. Next to it was a similarly undamaged purple top hat, a golden band just above its brim. The hat, strangely enough, was only lightly dusted in snow, despite the raging storm outside, and was far too large to fit the baby.

Vanessa was unsure whether she should be... angry? At this tiny child? Or sorry for it..? Should she kill it? No, even if the thing had an unnaturally powerful soul for its age she wasn’t THAT heartless... Give it to someone? No, no, she couldn’t just casually hand off someone’s _baby_ to a rando on the street... Wait, who’s child even WAS this?! Did—did someone _actually_ chuck _a BABY_ at her house? It was tightly wrapped in some sort of bright yellow fabric (matching the nearby top hat, she noted), so it was impossible the baby had _thrown itself_ at her manor on its own. Probably.

“Well,” Vanessa thought aloud, “I DID always want a child. Princey and I were so excited to have a baby! Well, before-“ The sentence remained unfinished as she was struck by another one of her migraines. Growling, she darted across the hallway to the kitchen, gulping down half the contents of a scarlet vial and then re-corking the object. “Ugh, these headaches are getting worse... where was I? ‘Before’? Before what?” Imperceptibly frowning a bit, she tried her best to recall what she had been thinking about. “Ah, yes! A child! Oh, Princey so badly wanted a daughter, although I was more partial to a son, heehee~” she rambled on in a sickly-sort-of-sweet tone. “Oh, it is too bad that...” momentarily, she furrowed a brow. “...we were never able to have one.” That _is_ what happened, right? Of course, of course it was. The sad truth of it all. They had never been able to create an heir.

Remembering the baby, the Queen returned to the parlor and lifted the thing and the hat into her icy arms. It only seemed to cry louder, but the Queen was too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice. “Yes, yes, it _is_ quite wonderful that I have so well preserved the nursery all these years~! Perhaps it is a _tad_ dusty, but the child won’t mind, certainly. And of course, it can run a few errands for me as it grows, seeing as I have trouble leaving the house these days... perhaps, even, seeing as it has such an extraordinarily strong soul as this, I can train it to defeat that _bothersome_ ghost! Oh, I will dress it up in such cute little outfits and—ah...” Just now realizing that she would inevitably have to check to see what _gender_ the child was, and that there was really only one way to do just that, the Queen began sweating bullets (which, of course, quickly turned into shards of ice) and hurried to get upstairs. 

Placing the thing inside the crib and not bothering to dust the snow off of its face, she turned and promptly left the room, choosing procrastination in the sudden face of responsibility. She would prioritize fixing the house first, and then maybe finish that nap...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! If you’re here then, well, thanks for reading! This is my first time posting to Ao3, and I’m more of an artist than a writer, so I apologize if you dislike my writing.
> 
> I thought up this AU based on the concept of Hat Kid being raised by one of the bosses. Those AUs are all nice and fluffy, but they got me thinking; what if HK was raised in a... not-so-nice and fluffy environment? Queen Vanessa’s Manor is really the only level I can think of where Hat Kid seems TERRIFIED. And, well... I really felt interested by the concept, so here we are!
> 
> Some of my headcanons are going to be inserted in here, and I feel that in many cases they can’t really be explained properly in the story, at least not without breaking immersion. So, I will explain any headcanons that appear within a chapter and are not sufficiently explained in its notes!
> 
> Constructive criticism is very welcome, as long as it is ACTUALLY constructive. Also, please tell me if you spot any typos, but misspellings in dialogue are most likely intentional! I find it the easiest way to portray diction and the way I imagine certain characters to talk.
> 
> This fic is currently scheduled to update every Friday, but if I decide to make a temporary or permanent change to the update schedule you will be informed!
> 
> Ciao!


	2. Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of memories.
> 
> We learn what Hat Kid’s childhood was like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some psychological child abuse. It’s pretty minor in my opinion, but some people may disagree with me so I’ll provide a warning.

“Who’s that?” asked a high-pitched, squeaky voice. Its owner, clad in willow-green and icy blue, was a girl, no older than six, with a very curious expression plastered on her face. Messy locks of brown hair fell to just above her shoulders, and big, bright blue eyes peered up at her mother.

In contrast to the glowing child beside her, said mother was a slender black silhouette, only just above average height, whose torn dress melted into her shadowy figure. Two crimson gemstones, the larger planted on her chest and the smaller on her neck, illuminated her head and arms, allowing them to be somewhat discernible against her ebony hair, and a golden crown, embedded with similar jewels, hovered above her head. The woman’s face was her only other defining feature, shining bright red.

Her cross-shaped pupils moved to observe the painting her daughter was pointing at. The painting had been crafted by one of the finest artists in the land, and the brightly painted colors of its subjects smartly complimented each other. The subjects were, of course, the commissioners of the painting— on the left, the now-queen, albeit younger and wearing a pretty, predominantly green dress with gold accents; to the right, a somewhat lanky man, his royal purple and red color scheme as well as his crown making it obvious he too was royalty. The princess was gripping his right arm, which was outstretched and bent at the elbow in gentlemanly fashion. Although they appeared quite happy, the couple’s faces (particularly their eyes) had long ago been torn to shreds.

The queen’s face lit up in recognition. “Oh! Why, your father, of course!” she replied, beaming.

The girl sputtered. “I-I have a _**dad**_?!”

“But of course! He has been... _preoccupied_ , as of late. He is a _very_ busy man, after all!” Vanessa’s thoughts turned toward the prince, _her_ prince, currently “occupied” by his punishment in the cellar. She would let him out _eventually_ , of course. She wasn’t a _monster_! She could already picture the excitement on his face when he saw his new child, _their_ child! He couldn’t possibly leave her _now_ , go back to that dreadful _law school_ filled to the brim with _harlots_. But... what if he did? She had been wrong the last time she’d had the same thought.

...

She’d better leave him there for a few more weeks. Just in case.

The child, oblivious, tilted her head. “Could I at least meet him? Where is he?”

“I’m afraid not, dear. He is currently ‘in time out’. But I promise, perhaps when you are bit older, you will meet him!” Vanessa gave her daughter an empty smile. The girl frowned a bit, swiveling her head to look at her mother with a pitiful expression, forming pleading, round puppy-eyes. The queen felt no sympathy. “Vanessa, don’t give me that look. You can’t always get what you want. You would do well to remember that.” The girl’s face fell into a pout.

“It feels like I _never_ get what I want...” she mumbled.

“What was that? You know how I feel about mumbling, snow pea.”

“U-um, n-nothing, mother! M-may I go n-now?” The queen nodded, absentmindedly.

“You are dismissed.” The child scampered into another room, but the queen barely registered her departure. She raised a blackened hand to cradle the painted prince’s face, not noticing the frost that spread from her fingertips. “Oh, Princey~” she cooed. “I do wish I could come and see you right now! Then we could cuddle by the fire on cold winter days, like we used to, or bake cookies together again... but we can’t. I agreed to do this because _I love_ you! Because you told me it was for your own good! You _insisted_ that this was the only way for you to learn your lesson.” She let out an almost hysterical giggle, staring at the painted depiction of her love.

A sharp pain shot through her temple.

**————————————————————————————————**

“Mommy?”

Vanessa continued reading, not bothering to look up. “Yes, Nessa?” she sighed.

“What’s a...uh-dop,” the child narrowed her eyes in concentration, “uh-dop-shun?”

The queen froze mid page-turn, becoming slightly transparent as her version of paling. “...what brought this up?” she asked icily.

“Um, um, I was practicing reading,” the girl started, “with a book I f-found on the third f-floor. A-an’ it said sumthin about, um, putting people up for ‘uh-dop-shun.’” On the third floor? Drat. It was probably one of Princey’s old law books, or maybe even a novel. She had neglected to get rid of them, or even to go through them to make sure the books didn’t contain any content she didn’t want the child to read. Not that _he_ ever read them anymore, _obviously_ much more interested in his fiancée than some musty old _books_. She simply hadn’t had time to clear out his room! Nessa was _ever_ such a handful, after all. Speaking of Nessa...

“Well, adoption is...hm...” The queen paused, trying to find the right words. “...it has multiple meanings, ahhh... one meaning, is the action of taking up something, such as a practice...” She shifted uncomfortably. “A-and, the other... is when someone, ah, raises someone else’s child... as their own.” There. She hoped the child would find that explanation suitable and leave it there.

“Can you g-give an example?” Peck.

“U-uhm...” Vanessa coughed to stall for time, forcing a weak smile. “You see- alright, imagine, for a moment, that someone— let’s, ah, say, for example, _mmmeee..._ ” She winced. ‘ _Why did you use yourself as an example, IDIOT?!’_

“...wwwere to be approached by some parents who gave me their child, or perhaps... I were to find a child without any parents.” Her expression grew more and more strained. “If I, then, _raised_ that child as its adoptive mother— then the child would be _adopted_.” She glanced down and saw big, blue, innocent eyes staring up at her. Thankfully, the child did not seem to catch on.

The little girl nodded, _finally_ satisfied. “Now then, Nessa dear, run along. Mother... has some business to attend to.” She watched the girl trot off, humming some made-up song, and round the corner. Relieved, Vanessa turned back to her book. It had been one of her absolute _favorites_ to read with Princey _—_ it was a shamethe letters on the cover were long ago worn away, and the story no longer made sense because she had torn out half the pages in a fit of rage at some point.

**————————————————————————————————**

**_“Vanessa.”_ **

****

Her angry voice shook the manor. The queen towered over the small girl, arms folded and eyes narrowed. Black mist pooled at her feet, curling around the tiny figure before her like cold, wispy fingers. The child shivered, curling into a tight ball on the hard floor. The mist was suffocating, and activated the queen’s vision-altering effect; the two factors combined caused the young girl to tear up even more, contributing to her pathetic sobbing. Perhaps the most terrifying of all, however, was the unwelcome blaring in her ears, a tell-tale sign that Vanessa was furious beneath her relatively calm exterior. The obvious choice to an outsider in this situation would be to run far, far away and never look back— but the child knew better than most that any efforts to escape when her mother was _this_ mad were futile.

“ _What did I say about climbing the ice statues?_ ” the queen hissed.

“N-n-not t-to do i-i-it,” the girl choked out, voice barely a whisper.

“ _ **So then WHY in the name of SUBCON did you DISOBEY ME?!**_ ”

The girl cringed at the queen’s infamous shriek. She hadn’t _meant_ to ruin her mother’s favorite statue.

************

She had noticed something shiny poking out from her mother’s bed canopy, juuuuust out of reach no matter what tall surface she scaled. But then she saw it— the statue, stationed snugly betwixt the bed and vanity. It (he?) was the _perfect_ object to climb on; a broad-shouldered man, who would undoubtedly be easy enough to ascend. He was just the right height, plus there were several places she could grab onto for further support, including his outstretched arms and large crown. Her mother _had_ said not to climb the statues, but mother didn’t have to know! She’d broken lots of rules before without getting caught, anyway— and her curiosity hadn’t left room for rationality.

If it had, perhaps she would have had enough foresight to realize climbing on slippery ice with her bare hands and then attempting to stand on said ice was a _bad_ idea.

She had barely begun her daring ascent (she only lasted like 5 seconds) when a foot slipped, she found herself dangling from the figure’s right arm, and her added weight toppled the statue. Everything seemed to go in slow-motion. In a desperate attempt to avoid being crushed, the girl hurled herself towards the right wall, ungracefully landing on her side and knocking the wind out of her lungs. The heavy statue, on the other hand, fell slightly to the left, narrowly missing the bed, which was both a good and bad thing. Thankfully, the entire bed was not also brought down into a pile of rubble (it was a rickety old thing, certainly not suited to supporting a statue made of solid ice)... however, it also meant that the figure had nothing to break its fall. Rather, its _fall_ broke _it_. The statue, _very_ audibly, shattered into about a bazillion tiny little glittery shards, at about the same time as the girl’s heart.

She’d tried to leave the crime scene, she really had. But it was impossible _not_ to inhale the combination of dust and ice particles in the air, and she found herself coughing and hacking as her eyes watered through the dim light. It wouldn’t have been hard for Vanessa to put two and two together, anyhow, considering that the chances of some intruder making it to the second floor without her noticing were practically zero, and there was only one other possible culprit.

So the child ran, and tripped, and stumbled through the dark room. By some miraculous means she had found her way to the back door (although not without sustaining several injuries) and ran straight through her own room and into the hallway wall. She could feel the hairs on the back of her head prick up in response to her fast-approaching mother’s chilling aura. She had hurriedly picked herself up, ignoring the throbbing pain coming from _everywhere,_ and hereyes had darted around wildly. Blindly, and mostly from muscle memory, she’d bolted down the hallway, skidded at the end, and then yanked open the doors to the stairs. One of them slammed against the wall, almost sounding like it had hit hard enough to cause permanent damage, but she didn’t care.

The girl had scrambled upstairs, the queen’s mist sapping her energy and the alarm of death droning loudly in her ears. In a better state of mind she would have darted through the doors leading toward the third floor and then found somewhere to hide, but her mother’s magic had an effect upon its victims that put them in a frenzy, their fear muddying better judgement. And so, she continued up the second flight of stairs to the attic, with burning lungs and a slight limp.

**Dead end.**

The child whipped around, black mist already filling the doorway. “ _Nonononononono I’msorryI’msorry—_ “ she‘d driveled, voice becoming more and more desperate as her words became unintelligible. She had backed up slowly, legs shaking. The girl then tripped over the wooden platform at the back of the room, landing on the floor with a solid **thud** and eliciting a startled yelp. She’d tried to get up, but it was too late. Her mother’s aura was too strong now— she was enveloped in pure terror, and her legs refused to work.

************

So here she was— trapped between her furious mother and the wall, begging for mercy she would never receive. “I-I d-d-didn’t mean t-to break—“

“ _Of course I know you didn’t mean to!!!_ ” the queen snapped, unsympathetic. “ _I don’t want your worthless apologies, I WANT an explanation!_ ” The girl opened and closed her mouth like a dying fish, unable to get out the words through her sobs. Her mother scoffed. “ **And stop that. Big girls don’t _cry_.**”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We aren’t going to get a _direct_ sequel to that last memory, just to be clear, but we will eventually find out how it ends.
> 
> I mentioned I’m an artist, right? Well, it turns out my artistic side leaked into the writing side and I couldn’t help designing Vanessa and Hat Kid in this AU. Everyone else remains _relatively_ unchanged, at least appearance-wise, so I might occasionally draw pictures to go with the story? Anyways, here’s Vanessa’s reference. 
> 
> —— = separation between flashbacks
> 
> *** = indicates flashback within a flashback(?)
> 
> The painting isn’t actually based on any canon painting but coincidentally resembles the one on the second floor so you can picture it as that one if you like.
> 
> The mumbling thing is indeed a Tangled reference.
> 
> “Princey” is not the Prince’s name, it’s a nickname.
> 
> The third floor exists in this AU, and is accessible via the stairs to the attic. There are two flights of stairs, with the door to the third floor on the landing in between them. The Prince’s old room is located on that floor. Fun fact: nobility used to sleep in separate rooms, although I’m not quite sure why.
> 
> Vanessa’s “favorite statue” is actually her own father, and is later replaced with a candelabra on a dresser seen in the canon game.
> 
> This chapter didn’t originally exist, but I figured I should at least tell a little bit about Hat Kid’s childhood. After this there will be a more in-depth childhood memory, and then we’ll get to the main plot which takes place during the main game.
> 
> I don’t think I mentioned this, but basically every other AHiT character will also be in this story at some point, except for the DLC characters! I just didn’t add other characters in the tags because the chapters involving them aren’t posted and most of them aren’t even written yet. I will add tags as things become relevant so as not to disappoint people who came here looking for a specific character!
> 
> Not to say Vanessa will become irrelevant once the other bosses are introduced, though. Oh, no. Quite the opposite.


	3. Cellar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of a three-chapter long memory.
> 
> A new character is finally introduced!

Hat Kid didn’t have a _bad_ life; no, not at all! She had a loving mother, plenty of nice things, and all the comfort she could ever want. No, it wasn’t a bad life—just maybe a little _dull_ at times. Despite every aspect of her strict and isolated upbringing, Hat Kid was an adventurous spirit, an eternal flame. Perhaps it was even _because_ of how she was raised that Hat Kid craved something new, somewhere she could explore.

She had spent all 7 lonely years of her life inside of a cramped-up _manor_ , for crying out loud! At this point, the child could probably navigate every room of the house BLINDFOLDED. Well, almost every room. Her mother was pretty strict about Hat Kid’s permissions in the master bedroom, ever since... the statue incident. Not that she particularly wanted to go back there, anyways. There _was_ also the cellar which she wasn’t allowed to enter, probably the only interesting thing left in this house, but, well, that was it. Hat Kid’s life was monotonous, predictable, and utterly, awfully _drab_.

Even her _name_ was boring! It was unique, sure, but Hat Kid had grown used to the title. Her mother preferred to call her “Vanessa” instead (although she usually used the nickname “Nessa”), but the child wasn’t particularly fond of the name. It just didn’t feel right! So ‘Hat Kid’ was her self-proclaimed nickname, partially due to the fact that she had never actually heard a name other than her mother’s and maybe some storybook characters’ before, and partially due to her strange interest in hats (despite not actually owning one). She didn’t know why, but she just felt... drawn to the clothing items, somehow. Not that _mother_ would ever call her ’Hat Kid’, oh no. Never mind what _her own child_ wanted, using such a ridiculous name was _unthinkable_!

Hat Kid frowned at the thought. What was so wrong with ‘Hat Kid’? She liked the name! Wasn’t that all that mattered? Frustrated, the child crossed her arms and stomped the ground with enough force to leave an indent, surprising even the one who had dealt the damage. She quickly bent down and apologized to the floor with genuine remorse, uncaring that the floor was insentient and therefore unable to feel pain.

Not that she _disliked_ her mother—no, of course not! Hat Kid cringed just at _the idea._ How could she ever feel distaste towards the one who had lovingly raised her, protected her from the dangers of the outside world, and kept her despite every stupid mistake she made? Sure, she lived in constant fear, but that fear stemmed from _respect_. So what if her metabolism suffered from malnutrition? Metabolism was overrated anyways! Hat Kid loved her mother, and her mother loved her back.

She wouldn’t _dare_ fault the queen for how she had turned out! Rude, disobedient, messy... the list went on. Hat Kid had obviously been the failure in every aspect, and was clearly the only one to blame for her incompetence.

The girl had been told this so often that she’d started to believe it.

Hat Kid’s personality was so greatly influenced by her mother that one who met her while Vanessa was absent would believe they had met an entirely different person. She was a mischievous little imp with a big heart, but put her mother 10 feet away and you’d have the most polite, quiet, and respectful child this side of Earth. The girl faced any challenge with bravery and maybe a touch of sass, but shriveled into submission the second mother got involved. Really, the only things keeping Hat Kid in the manor were her fear of her mother and the fact that she had been left fairly ignorant to the outside world. For all she knew, nothing else even existed. The only thing outside the icy, nearly opaque, windows was darkness and snow; that was all she had ever seen of the outside, and while time had helped her build up endurance against the cold, Hat Kid wasn’t exactly _fond_ of the sensation. It, too, was a given, just another part of her repetitive life. Heck, she’d never even _met_ any other creature, be it insect, animal, or humanoid; she had only heard about them in the occasional fairytale, or read about them from a book. Seven years of the same walls, same rooms, same cold, same low light levels, same unnourishing food.

So this is how Hat Kid found herself standing in front of the cellar doors one night, during one of her mother’s ‘sleeping sessions’. If mother discovered she had been down here she’d be FURIOUS, but the temptation was too strong. The girl wanted something NEW. She wanted a CHANGE. She _needed_ the sensation of DANGER. And so, Hat Kid saw her hands shoot out toward the lock, turn the frozen, stolen key, and practically throw open the doors, like a starved animal tearing into a meal.

**_______________________________________**

The Snatcher sat peacefully in his soft velvet chair, casually reading a comically large book. He was looking forward to a nice, long night of relaxation, with maybe a few lost souls to terrorize here and there. Well, it was _always_ night in Subcon nowadays, but he knew what he meant. When was the last time he had lounged about, anyways? It felt like his work had lasted an eternity.

His latest contractor had been a _particularly_ rude one, who’d _apparently_ been stupid enough to come to the forest for the sole purpose of defeating its ruler. They hadn’t even done _any_ research, wielding some supposedly ancient _stick_ they called a sword. It wasn’t even enchanted! What kind of ghost did they think _he_ _was_ , one of those dinky little _tissue paper_ **Halloween decorations**?! He’d made sure to give the dimwit a particularly lethal task, and, in retrospect, shoved their soul into the rotting outhouse. Consuming it would probably lower his own IQ, and it wasn’t like the soul could cause any problems in an _outhouse_. He almost felt bad for himself. After all, the only ones who ever wandered into his domain were, understandably, _idiots_ , and while this made it incredibly easy to get free labor, he was stuck eternally dealing (ha) with imbeciles. Even massive, shadowy, soul-stealing ghosts need breaks every once in a while!

Unfortunately for him, no one got breaks in Subcon. You always had to be on your feet (or lack thereof) when your home was filled with poisonous arachnids, sentient nooses, homicidal swamps, and, most _annoyingly_ , when your stupid, possessive, Elsa-wannabe ex was your neighbor. Seriously, Vanessa! He didn’t want to deal with her temper tantrums! What was she, _5_? Although, now that he thought about it, she _had_ been uncharacteristically inactive for the past decade or so. Given, a decade was really _nothing_ in the grand scheme of things. Both creatures had lived for centuries, maybe even millennia! ...Ok probably not, but he had lost count after the first two hundred or so years.

Nonetheless, her magic could hardly go a year without flaring (frosting?) up, the resulting snow a massive pain to get rid of! If not her magic, then certainly her isolation would only last a couple years before it caused her to throw a fit, taking out her fury on Subcon. So then, had she _finally_ realized her mistake? Honestly, he doubted she was even physically able to admit she was wrong, at this point. Perhaps she’d finally keeled over and kicked the bucket. He sure _hoped_ so. Maybe he was just that lucky.

...

...no, he was never lucky _._ Not ever since he died. But whatever! Who EVEN cared! It was nothing, the crazy _witch_ was still safely sealed within her own ‘realm’, escape prevented by barriers made SPECIFICALLY to hold in ice! Which her entire body was _made of_ , thank you very much! He was obviously faaaar superior in power, anyway! She had claimed the souls of a few unfortunate, eternally frozen victims, but that number was _nothing_ compared to his own reserves. Everything would be fine! His minions would quickly alert him of any suspicious activity. He could easily sense anyone entering his forest, especially if it was _her_. He should’ve stopped overthinking things and started relaxing instead!

But his mind refused to allow it. What if she had found some way to bypass his barrier? What if she had discovered a way to massively boost her strength? What if she’d thought up a spell to force him back to... he didn’t want to think about it. Whatever the reason for her strange calm, she was clearly planning _something_.

And Snatcher intended to find out exactly what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boi here comes noodle ghost
> 
> Once the main plot begins he won’t become relevant again for a while, so enjoy this while it lasts I guess?
> 
> Also Snatcher is _way_ harder to write than I anticipated, I’ve had to rewrite like half of his segments because they felt too OOC...
> 
> Anyway! 
> 
> Hat Kid is currently _seven_ years old. This takes place about a year after the last chapter ended!
> 
> “Vanessa” is HK’s real name.
> 
> Her personality is basically the same as in canon when Vanessa isn’t there, but it does a complete 180 when her mum gets involved.
> 
> That contractor mentioned isn’t meant to be anyone in particular.
> 
> Snatcher and Vanessa died around 350 years prior.


	4. Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of a three-chapter-long memory.
> 
> Not exactly a “friendly” family reunion...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing a week! I was sick.
> 
> Have a HK to make up for it~  
> 

**_Boom!_ **

****

The door shot open.

She hopped down the stairs into the murky depths below, the exhilaration of seeing something new for the first time in _years_ making her heart thump loudly in her chest, and a wide grin spread across her face. She didn’t even care when icky, muddy water soaked into her nice, shiny boots! Okay, maybe she cared _a little_. Still! She quickly discovered it was fun to kick around and splash the water. Hat Kid giggled as she made a mess of herself. Oh, mother would _never_ allow this!

...but mother wasn’t here right now.

Still a massive smile plastered on her face, the child waded over to the stone walls. What were those metal-thingies hanging from them? She went to touch the dangling loops, but her gut told her that she really shouldn’t. She got a bad feeling from them. Years of magic exposure had made her more sensitive to magic than most other mortals, and she could almost _feel_ the bad memories and negative emotions _reeking_ from this place. She turned with a small frown.

The girl ducked through a large door and into a side room. A very rotten, wooden grate replaced the right wall, allowing the rest of the cellar to be visible while still acting as a barrier. The walls were lined with barrels, silver contraptions attached to their fronts which looked like... faucets? She wondered if maybe this was some sort of weird sink design. To her dismay, however, nothing came out of _any_ of the faucets when their handles were turned. “It’s broken or sumthin...” she mumbled, disappointed. As if on cue, a cool breeze blew against her leg, snapping the girl out of her displeasure. Bending down and peering between the ‘sinks’, she uttered a quiet “Huh?”. It was fairly dark down here, but she thought she could vaguely make out some kind of hole—

Suddenly, Hat Kid heard a weird cracking noise from behind her. Her heart dropped. Had her mother heard the cellar doors opening and caught her snooping around down here? Terrified, the child whipped around.

A purple-black claw shot up from the ground, then another, a dense, shadowy fog accompanying them. The room suddenly became much chillier, and the little light there was became tinted indigo. Slowly, a massive creature made of shadow pulled itself out of the dark spot in the floor, towering over the little girl. Its body curled and ended in a wispy tail. The shadow’s face, in contrast to the rest of its dark body, glowed an eerie yellow. The corners of its mouth curved into a menacing grin, accented by sharp fangs. Other than the face however, the creature’s body was nearly a silhouette, the most defining feature being spike-like protrusions that framed what she could only assume was its neck. This monster, although intimidating, was certainly NOT her mother. She almost let out a sigh of relief, but was cut off by a realization; this guy was nearly _identical_ to the evil, ruthless, scary shadow-monster-dude in all those stories her mother told her!

…

Cooooool.

**“AHAHAHAHAHAHA! FOOOOOOooooo……”** the shadow trailed off, apparently only just noticing he was hollering for no real good reason at a little girl. Although, surprisingly, she didn’t exhibit quite the screeching, flailing reaction one would expect a small child to have after a ghost had yelled at them. Instead, though still clearly scared, she merely stared up at him, shivering, in silence. Kinda awkward silence, actually, so he broke it.

**“O-oh uh...”** he stuttered, not really sure how to react. He had been prepared for anything, or, so he thought. Some huge ice golem? Sure, ok. Perhaps the witch had been powering up a giant magic laser to freeze over the entire planet? No problemo. An undead army stretching on for miles, consisting of the ‘subjects’ she had murdered herself? He’s seen weirder. But some... _tiny child hanging out in her basement_? Maybe he’d finally lost it.

**“I- Hold up, what are you _doing_ down here, kid?! You know who _lives_ here, right?” **The Snatcher was baffled as the child in front of him gave a slight nod, the fear on her face melting into confusion.

“O-of course I kn-know who lives here! _I_ do!” blurted Hat Kid, as if it was a well-known fact, her voice small but almost indignant. It was Snatcher’s turn to be confused. His expression, however, quickly shifted to amused, then incredulous, and then—

**“pffTAHAHAHAHA! ARE- pft- A-ARE YOU _SERIOUS_?! You— pff- _you LIVE HERE?!_ ” **he choked out between snickers.

Offended, the girl folded her arms and stomped a foot. “Yeah!” she pouted, only sending the shadow into more bouts of laughter. Calming down a bit, he flicked away a golden tear with one finger.

**“Kid, as far as anyone’s been concerned, the only resident of this place for _centuries_ has been—” **his smile tightened and eyes narrowed as he practically _spat_ the name, **“— _Vanessa._ ”**

Hat Kid missed the change in his demeanor, and in contrast brightened at the mention of her mother. “Yeah! That’s my mommy!”

The ghost wheezed, all signs of laughter disappearing from his face. His infamous grin faltered. Almost instantaneously, the room fell completely silent, save for the intrusive ‘ _plink!_ ’ of a stray water droplet falling from the ceiling. He slowly turned his head to face Hat Kid’s, his body now a bit more translucent, and his widened eyes had lost much of their glow. Quickly, albeit not quickly enough, the ghost somewhat regained his composure.

**“Sorry, _what was that._ ” **he hissed, with a very obviously forced smile.

“U-um... y-you said ‘Vanessa’, right? That’s m-my mo-mo-mommy’s name...” she tried to answer. “U-unless,” Hat Kid grimaced, “you w-were talking about _me_.”

A look of disgust crossed his face. **“Oh, _of_ _course_ she’d name her daughter after _herself,_ ” **muttered the shadow, _probably_ rolling his eyes? It was hard to tell since his eyes were basically just lines. **“That** **’s _all_ she ever thinks about, anyway.” **Hat Kid frowned. What was that supposed to mean?

Without warning, the Snatcher floated towards her. She took a step back, but he didn’t appear to be attacking her and so she cautiously stayed put. His eyes narrowed even further, and it felt as if he were staring into her very _soul_.

**“Hmm... ah. You _aren’t_ biological,” **the shadow thought aloud, looking... relieved? What did ‘byolojikal’ mean, anyways? **“...about seven years old... well, that _would_ explain _her_ inactivity... wait, what?” **Confusion crossed the spectre’s face, and suddenly his focus shifted back to the soul’s owner. **“You said your name was Vanessa, didn’t you? Don’t answer that, you did. So what’s this ‘Hat Kid’ business?** _What kinda name even_ is _that..._ **”** the last part was much quieter than the rest, most likely just meant to be a comment to himself, but Hat Kid heard it anyway.

“W-well, um, ‘Vanessa’ is really just what m-my _mom_ wants to call me,” she replied sheepishly, looking down at her toes through the murky water. The shadow stared a moment before shrugging.

**“Eh, can’t blame ya kid. _I_ wouldn’t want a crummy name like ‘ _Vanessa’_ either.” **Something about the way he said that sounded off, but she kept her mouth shut. Awkward silence hung heavy in the air for a minute, each party avoiding eye-contact.

“Um... what does... ‘by-uh-lo-jik-uhl’ mean..?” asked the child timidly, seemingly ashamed that she didn’t know the meaning of the word. Startled, the ghost glanced up and quirked an eyebrow (well, quirked an _eye_ , really).

An idea quickly formulating in his head, the Snatcher grinned and excitedly clasped his hands together. **“Why, it means you aren’t _technically_ her daughter! She didn’t _give_ _birth_ toyou. And you know what _that_ means? It means _I_ get to give you the _BEST_ news of your _miserable existence_!” **he exclaimed. Hat Kid tilted her head curiously, although she _seriously_ doubted the ‘best news of your life’ part.

**“It means...“** Cue pause for dramatic effect. **“...you’re _ADOPTED_!” **Wait, _adopted_?! Fortunately for Snatcher, she actually _did_ know the meaning of _this_ word, and, much to his delight, the revelation sent her reeling. However, another thought came to his mind, and, ever the jerk, Snatcher continued speaking, barely giving Hat Kid time to process the new information and the possibility that her life was a lie. **“Aaaactually, not even that, huh? There’s _no way in PECK_ she actually went to some orphanage and filled out all the legal paperwork to adopt you. So uh, congrats kid! Turns out you don’t _legally_ have parents, adopted or otherwise!” **She raised her hands to the sides of her head, quaking. His grin widened.

Surprisingly enough, normally not even _Snatcher_ would be _this_ much of a jerk to a seven-year-old child. Usually he’d just kill them without _too_ much pain and misery. Sure, he was a soul-stealing, vengeful, borderline _demon_ , but he still had _standards_! Standards which, at this point, had been thrown out the window. This wasn’t _just_ someidiot kid— it was _Vanessa’s_ idiot kid. Some little spoiled brat who was undoubtedly going to grow up to be every bit like her “mother”. _So what_ if he was being maybe a _little_ unjustifiably cruel. Vanessa had been _a lot_ unjustifiably cruel to _him_.

Still shaking, poor Hat Kid continued to try and wrap her head around what she had been told. _Adopted_? There was no way! And, and if she _was_ , why hadn’t her mother just said so? She didn’t want to be told her mother wasn’t really her mother by some big _meanie_ ghost with a _dumb_ face and his dumb, stupid, _belittling_ smile. But now it was too late.

“N-no!” She squeaked, hands balled into fists. “Y-you— you’re **lying**!” Hot tears formed in her eyes, and the child shook her head fiercely, refusing to believe it. No way! No no no nonononono. She wasn’t adopted, she _couldn’t_ be. Mother would have told her! “She IS my mom she, she, she **IS**!“

The girl tried to blink away the tears, a voice echoing in her head. _“Big girls don’t cry.”_ She was a big girl! She could be just as mature and useful as her mother wanted her to be!

...

But she wasn’t being very _mature_ right now, huh. This was _far_ too dramatic a reaction to such an _obvious_ lie! Slowly, she straightened herself, putting on a serious face. Looking the spectre in the eye, Hat Kid stated a bit shakily, “She IS my mother. She— she _has_ to be.”

The Snatcher was slightly taken aback by her sudden regain of composure, but careful not to show it. He brushed it off as the brat merely being incredibly stubborn. He _had_ noticed how strong her soul was, after all, don’t think he didn’t.

**“Soooooo if _she’s_ your mumsy, what’re you doing down here? I _know_ she hates people coming downstairs.” **The ghost was back to his original smirk, condescendingly gazing down at the child.

“Uh...” Hat Kid paled and forced a smile, dropping eye contact.

**“ _HAH!!_ You _toootally_ snuck down here, didn’t you, kid? That key you’re holding is for the cellar! It’s one of her ‘sleeping days’, you and I both know that, and _you_ decided to _betray her trust_ and—“ **A crackly yawn from upstairs interrupted his taunt. He paused, looking in a vague upward direction as if waiting for another noise, before continuing. **“Whoopsie, looks like I jinxed it! Good thing she takes so long to actually get up.”** He either didn’t notice or ignored the terror Vanessa’s yawn had struck into the little girl, instead materializing a yellowed piece of paper from seemingly nowhere. He thrust a blood-red feather toward the child.

While it was true Vanessa liked to take her sweet time getting out of bed, their time was still limited. Snatcher had to think fast, and fortunately for him, he considered himself to be rather adept in the speed department.

He _could_ just kill the kid. Pop her head off, snatch her soul— it _would_ make things easier in the long run, and he, in all honesty, had absolutely no problem doing so. He wasn’t one to discriminate; he’d kill anyone, regardless of age, race, gender, or position on the endangered species list! _Buuuut..._

If she’d managed to exist in this dump for seven whole years and wasn’t dead or frozen yet, there was a _very_ good chance she was useful to Vanessa, in some way. Now that he knew about his rival’s little secret, it, or, _she_ rather, would almost certainly prove to be useful in his _own_ plans.

**“Okay, kid, here’s the dealio. You don’t tell your mum about our little meeting, and in return I won’t steal your soul (yet) or tattle about your escapade to the forbidden cellar. Capiche?”** Slightly bewildered but not really left with much of a choice, Hat Kid nodded. **“Good. Now here, sign your name on this— oh, wait. Do you even know how to write? Eh, it doesn’t matter. As long as you make an attempt, it’ll do.”** She stuffed her key into some nonexistent pocket and grabbed the paper from the air, reading what it said as best she could. Con...tract? HK scanned the ‘contract’, even the backside, and, finding no discrepancies, grabbed the pen to sign. She didn’t, in fact, know how to write— mother had decided the skill was unnecessary, at least at this age— nor had she ever really tried to. But she _was_ a great artist, and since she was half-decent at reading, how hard could writing be?

Hat Kid put her pen to the paper, but froze. She _could_ write the name mother would undoubtedly have encouraged... OR she could write the name _she_ wanted to be called by. Grinning in silent rebellion, the girl wrote ‘Hat Kid’ onto the paper, adorning her first signature with a cute little drawing of herself and adding a stylish top hat as an afterthought. Although, based on the shadow’s expression, the name was definitely _not_ written in the English alphabet.

**“Uh... you know what, I have a feeling that’s the best I’m going to get from you so I’ll work with it,”** frowned Snatcher, holding the contract at eye-level. **“Hm... so we’re going with ‘Hat Kid’, not ‘Vanessa’? Looks like _someone’s_ a little gremlin in the making.” **The child giggled a bit, but quickly stifled her laughter.Even if he couldn’t actually _read_ the mess of lines she had written, the ghost could always _feel_ the intent behind a signed name. This made it easy to tell if people were lying about their identity. Or to tell what they wrote if they thought they could be a jerk by writing in some other language.

Just as he ‘poofed’ the contract away, a loud _creak_ followed by a _thud_ resounded throughout the manor. Whelp. She’s finally up. The mad Queen’s footsteps were slow and not very heavy, but each one progressively grew louder, signifying her approach. Panicked, Hat Kid did a little nervous hop before dashing to the cellar door, and used the key she’d pulled out of... somewhere, to hastily lock it. This averted suspicion from the crime scene, since everything on the outside most likely looked the same as it had before Vanessa had gone to bed. It took Hat Kid a moment to realize that she had just screwed herself over.

There wasn’t enough time now to unlock the door, leave, and then re-lock it, especially since her hands were shaking so badly. Even if she did manage to pull it off, the door had not been oiled in literal _centuries,_ and now that mother was fully awake she would _undoubtedly_ hear it, no matter where she was in the house. But staying was not an option; mother _always_ looked for her first thing after she had woken up, and rarely ever left the manor anyways, leaving no windows of time where Hat Kid could escape undetected. Crap.

She turned to the shadow, a pleading look on her face. He frowned. **“Kid, you got yourself into this predicament. I agreed to keep quiet to Vanessa, not to save your sorry butt. I’m out.”** He’d been forced to shrink down _far_ smaller than he would’ve liked just to fit down here, and was itching to get back out in the open.A dark pool of mist began to form around his “tail”, but then—

He heard a choked sob.

Looking up, the ghost saw a child. Crying. Trapped in the cellar. Terrified of Vanessa. No hope of escape. The Snatcher, against better judgment, finally allowed himself a glance at the single wall he had been avoiding this whole time, the wall with chains and maybe even the outline of a body and...

She didn’t deserve that. No one did. She was just a child.

Groaning, he floated over to the girl, who hadn’t noticed the annoyed ghost through her tears. He grabbed her by the cape, snickered at her startled yelp, and tossed her into the hole between two barrels. After dusting off his hands, the ghost dove into the shadows and got _the peck_ out of there.

_Fine._ He’d give the brat a head start. He needed her _alive_ for her to be useful in his plans, that was all. But this was _her_ mess, so it wasn’t _his_ fault if the next time he snuck in here he found a little 4-foot tall ice statue of a 7-year-old girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! Maybe that didn’t quite go as you hoped it would, or maybe it went exactly like you thought. Either way, I think it’s safe to say that Snatcher and Hat Kid have an “it’s complicated” relationship status.
> 
> Aaaaand it’ll stay that way for over two years but hey, who’s counting?
> 
> Anywho, here’s some explanations:
> 
> Vanessa tells Hat Kid horror stories about the Snatcher (not actually using name though, just heavily implying him), in an attempt to make her really hate him or be terrified or something. It doesn’t work.
> 
> We’re gonna be sticking to male pronouns for the noodle here, sorry but my small brain can’t handle it when people constantly switch between “they” and “he”.
> 
> The “sinks” are kegs, HK is seven and a lot of this is from her seven-year-old POV ok.
> 
> Snatcher takes out his resentments towards Vanessa on Hat Kid without really realizing it, and will continue to do so in the future.
> 
> The Snatch can also look into people’s souls to find info on them, and subconsciously understands what they sign on his contracts, regardless of what language or lack thereof they wrote in!
> 
> He knows about the secret attic shortcut because he’s used it before lol
> 
> Mkay, byeeeee!


	5. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final part of a three-chapter-long memory.
> 
> We see the aftermath of Hat Kid’s ghost encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late! I really need to get back on schedule...
> 
> I wasn’t very happy with this chapter, so I ended up cutting and adding a lot of parts. To be perfectly honest, I’m still not a fan of it, so I’ll post an extra chapter on Monday!

_Cold_.

It was cold.

Freezing air blew into her face.

Sharp icicles jutted out of the walls and tore her dress.

It was nigh impossible to breathe.

But she kept moving forward, because that was the only thing she could do.

Regardless of where the tunnel took her, she knew one thing: itwould be better than her mother catching her.

After what felt like _hours_ (in reality it was hardly a minute), she crashed into something hard. Even though her eyes had adjusted to the darkness by now, it was still impossible to see exactly _what_ she’d bumped into. Hat Kid desperately hoped that it wasn’t a wall.

Using what little strength she possessed, the girl pushed against her unidentified obstacle. No result. Nonetheless, she had a knack for refusing to give up, even in the most hopeless of situations, and wouldn’t let despair kick in. There _had_ to be a way out, there just had to! What would she do if there wasn’t?

She felt the object move just a little.

With newfound determination, Hat Kid pressed even harder. Slowly but surely, she managed to move the object _just_ enough to create a small crack she could slip through. She dropped to her knees in an attempt to make herself as scarce as possible, squeezed through the crevice, and looked around.

The child found herself in the darker part of a _very_ dusty room. A room she’d recognize anywhere— the attic.

She’d never been a huge fan of this place, to say the least. It was the largest room in the house, and might have been her favorite if her memories of it weren’t so awful.

The attic had been the place her mother had locked her up in whenever she’d misbehaved, or even just when she had wanted the child out of her hair for a few hours. No amount of whining or screaming would soften the queen's heart; the girl eventually found that it was far easier to simply bide her time and wait out her isolation.

The worst punishment by far, however, had been her punishment after the “statue incident”. She’d been locked up for _days_ , hardly given enough food to keep her alive. To be perfectly honest, there had been times the girl had considered not eating at all, but she feared that her mother would get even _madder_ if she refused to eat, and that prospect kept her going. Days became weeks, and when weeks became months she’d stopped counting. She had been starting to think her mother would _never_ let her out when a familiar ‘click!’ came from the direction of the door. Instead of giving the child a few small morsels of food as per usual, however, her mother wordlessly set her free.

Mother still gave her the silent treatment for several days afterward, but that was _far_ preferable to the musty, cold, _deafeningly_ silent attic. At the time, she’d promised herself that she would never return to the place.

That promise had, unfortunately, been broken a couple times since, and was being broken once again now. Nonetheless, she did her best to keep her eyes on her objective, and away from any other parts of the room that may trigger some unwanted memories. She could reminisce later, right now was the time to ensure she didn’t get locked up here again, perma— ...she didn’t want to think about it.

Turning, the girl inspected the tunnel she’d crawled out of. At this point, she had been _sure_ that every nook and cranny of the attic was known to her. There was nothing much to do up here, after all, so the child had entertained herself by investigating every inch of the place. How, then, had she missed such a large hole?

The answer came quickly— a heavy wooden crate had been placed in front of the tunnel very deliberately. It was now slightly ajar, thanks to a certain brown-haired girl, but seemed oddly alone in the room. Now that she thought about it, the crate actually looked rather out of place, unaccompanied by any others and, unlike the attic’s other boxes, partially covered by an off-white cloth. She recalled seeing the crate several times before, but she’d certainly glossed over it. Hidden in plain sight... if this passageway had been here this whole time without her knowledge, what other secrets could the mansion be hiding?

The child shook her head. That was a question for another time. She pulled herself upright, realizing she was still on her hands and knees, and made her way towards the door. Tentatively, the girl reached toward the handle. Pressing her eyes tightly shut, she attempted to turn it.

Thankfully, the door was indeed unlocked, and she stepped out of the room as quickly and quietly as possible. Once the door clicked back into place, Hat Kid let out a breath she had been holding, and scampered down the stairs to the first landing.

The girl gently opened the door leading to the third floor, and peered out into the main hallway. All clear. Careful not to make any loud noises, she tiptoed three doors down into her father’s room, shoved the cellar key back into its hiding spot beneath the floorboards, and yanked a random book off of the shelf. She hopped onto his bed with practiced precision, landing expertly on a pillow in her usual position.

This was one of her favorite spots in the house for a number of reasons. The bed was comfy, there were plenty of books to read (which she rarely ever understood, but there wasn’t exactly much else in the house for her to do), and it was _filled_ with vibrant colors! The rest of the manor was faded and dull, but this room, for some reason unknown to her, seemed to have been carefully preserved.

Her mother didn’t really approve of her being up here all the time, and the very idea put the queen on edge. Hat Kid had a feeling it had something to do with the basement key, which she supposed was justified seeing as she had broken a very major rule as soon as the key had been discovered. But it kept the girl from destroying innocent ice statues, and so Vanessa begrudgingly allowed the child to spend her free time in the room.

In fact, it was one of the first spots her mother checked while searching for her. Hopefully the Queen hadn’t already been up here...

Right on cue, she heard the hallway floorboards creaking, growing progressively louder as her mother approached.

All at once the footsteps turned to deadly silence.

A painfully slow ‘ _ **creeeeaaaaak**_ ’ cut through the quiet.

The bedroom was flooded with an icy chill, its doorway filling with a black mist.

She didn’t dare breathe.

...

“Oh! **_There_ you are**, dear!” came the voice of her mother, its exasperated undertones melting into relief. The mist quickly dissipated. “I was beginning to get worried about you!”

Hat Kid looked up innocently, pretending to be startled. “O-oh! Hello, mother! D-did you enjoy your nap?”

Vanessa stretched, making a bunch of cracking noises that didn’t sound very healthy in Hat Kid’s opinion. She kept up the facade. “Yyyyes, it was satisfactory,” her mother yawned. “I thought I heard something downstairs, so I believed you to be on the first floor. Have you been up here the whole time?”

The girl paused. She _could_ tell her mother about that big, mean ghost, but she’d promised not to and besides, he _had_ helped her, so he couldn’t be _that_ bad, right? She feigned confusion and nodded in affirmation. “Y-yes, I’ve just been reading,” she lied. “Are... are you sure? I didn’t hear anything.”

Vanessa stared at her, expression unreadable. Hat Kid responded with an innocent look. “...Hm. I must have imagined it, then,” the queen responded at last. “I _am_ still rather groggy.” The girl gave a sympathetic smile. Vanessa looked around for a moment before letting out an irritated sigh. “I really don’t know why you like it up here so much. You have _your own_ room, you know! And it’s closer to mine, too, so that I don’t have to walk up so many stairs if you’ve hurt yourself.”

“I... didn’t want to disturb you while you were sleeping,” the girl replied. _Technically_ it wasn’t a _lie_.

The queen’s eyes flickered towards the spot in the floor hiding the key, though only for a moment. “You know what I mean, Nessa. You spend nearly all of your free time up here! Don’t you ever wonder if your mother might want some company, hm?”

“I-I! I just like... it up here...” To tell the truth, it was the warmest room of the house, even if that wasn’t saying much. _And_ , hanging out with mother just made her feel like she was constantly walking on thin ice. For multiple reasons.

“Just...” Her mother exhaled sharply. “Snow pea, it’s bedtime.”

Hat Kid looked disappointed, but trudged downstairs without complaint. She didn’t have a consistent bedtime— her mother merely used ‘bedtime’ as an excuse whenever the girl was bugging her— but she knew that arguing was pointless. She was exhausted from everything that had happened, anyway.

Vanessa stared blankly at the doorway for a while, listening for the creak of her daughter’s bed. When at last it came, she turned swiftly to the floorboard hiding her basement key. She was, admittedly, not the best at hiding things, but this key was special, and she prided herself on how well-hidden it was. Carefully using a very specific technique, the queen lifted the floorboard and reached into the darkness below. Her fingers curled around something hard. Vanessa grinned. It _had_ been a while since she had last visited her prince, hadn’t it?

**__________________________________________**

The Snatcher was, once more, curled up in his favorite chair, reading a particularly interesting book about the legal technicalities of some studio somehow owned simultaneously by two... birds. Apparently, they were _massive_ rivals too, never known to cooperate on _anything._ Just as he was getting to the good part, a massive outburst of magic shook Subcon Forest, knocking over objects and inhabitants alike.

_Vanessa._

He summoned the contract he had made only an hour earlier, looking the thing over. The piece of paper, however, was still in relatively good condition; not a tear or even a scratch in sight. So then the kid hadn’t violated her contract. That was good, but it didn’t answer the question of what had caused the ice witch’s magic surge. Perhaps the child had gone and gotten herself caught? She _did_ seem pretty stupid, after a—

He was cut off by a screech, only comparable to the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

**_“My prince! He’s GONE!!!!!!!”_ **

****

Snatcher jerked his head toward the manor. On his face was some strange mixture of rage, confusion, disbelief, and disgust.

The forest was shaken once more only seconds later, this time by the voice of its self-proclaimed ruler.

**“Wh— she didn’t _NOTICE?!_ ”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were confused, HK is referring to the third memory in chapter 2 whenever she thinks about the ‘statue incident’.
> 
> A certain prince put that crate in front of the attic shortcut, and miraculously, Vanessa is unaware of its existence to this day.
> 
> Vanessa has neglected to visit her supposed lover for centuries. Best girlfriend ever amirite-
> 
> A couple of movie directors get referenced :D
> 
> If one of the Snatcher’s contractors violates their deal, the physical contract will literally be broken. Best case scenario, there’s a little rip somewhere, meaning they only partially went against the contract. He’s (occasionally) forgiving in those cases. Worst case scenario, the contract is ripped to shreds, signifying that the contractor _completely_ violated their obligations.
> 
> Coincidentally, such contractors have a habit of mysteriously disappearing off the face of the Earth.
> 
> ——————
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! This is Snatcher’s final appearance for a while, but he’ll become much more important later on.
> 
> Next chapter we get to begin the main story!


	6. Hourglasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid gets a few nice little gifts, and Vanessa receives one as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, in this chapter I take _a lot_ of liberties.
> 
> Also Hat Kid is now nine.

Hat Kid was _beyond_ excited. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this thrilled! Well, there was that one time a couple of years ago, when she’d dreamed about meeting some sort of... ghost, in the cellar, but that didn’t _really_ count.

Today was the day mother was allowing her to go outside— not only that, but on some sort of “surprise secret mission”, too! She had been training for this moment for nearly two _years_ , mastering all sorts of fighting techniques.

She’d also learned what little there was to know about the surrounding lands. Mother, apparently, had never been particularly interested in travel, and consequently held almost no knowledge of the outside world. From what the girl could gather from books, there was Heiterburg, a flourishing town isolated on an island; Mafia City, a smog-filled, industrial metropolis; Sand ‘n Sails, a string of towns in an arid desert; the Moon, which was apparently inhabited by a colony of penguins; Subcon Forest, some haunted woods surrounding the nearby town; and Alpine Skyline, a mountain region inhabited by a variety of creatures. These were not the only civilizations on Earth, of course, but according to mother they were the nearest and therefore the only ones that really mattered.

Nonetheless, she couldn’t _wait_ to explore all those cool-sounding places! Even if mother _had_ said Subcon Forest was _really_ scary. She was a big girl! She could handle it! Energetically, she sprinted out her bedroom door and down the stairs, doing a little twirl when she entered the kitchen. She beamed up at her mother, waiting at the table. “Hi mommy!”

“ _Mother_ ,” Vanessa corrected, sighing. “Good morning.”

Hat Kid was bursting with energy. She _desperately_ wanted to talk her head off about how _incredibly_ enthusiastic she was, but the last time she’d done that her mother had angrily shushed her. “ _Children should be_ seen _and not_ heard,” the queen had scolded. “ _Speak only when spoken to._ ” That had ruined the child’s mood, and so she kept her trap shut in an effort to prevent history from repeating itself. The girl instead opted to bounce in her seat, swinging her legs back and forth rather violently.

“Nessa, dear, do be careful. You’ll break an arm with the way you’re hopping, or worse, the chair!” Hat Kid sat still. “Now then, I suppose you must be excited about leaving the manor, yes?” The child nodded so eagerly that she was left feeling a bit dizzy once she’d stopped. The queen chuckled in amusement. “Well, you must know that it is very... _dangerous_ , out there. I’m getting old. Once you begin traversing these foreign lands... I cannot protect you.” The girl nodded solemnly. “Still! You have far exceeded my expectations, and I have full confidence that you will succeed.” She’d _better_. If the child failed and got herself killed, it was back to square one, and these past nine years would have been a complete _waste_. Vanessa was _not_ about to let that happen.

“I’m ready!” stated the child, confidently. Confidence was a good sign, at least, although if it became _overconfidence_ it could be her downfall. “I can do it, I won’t let you down!”

Vanessa hummed, closing her eyes to think. “You will need some aide on your journey, nonetheless, and so I have prepared a few things for you.” She reached behind her back and pulled out a large, violet top hat.

It was the most _beautiful_ hat the girl had ever seen.

Encircled around the item was a golden ribbon, tied on the right side in a neat bow. On top of its knot sat a slightly faded yellow rose. She gasped. Was— was her mother giving her _a gift_?! She never got gifts! Even if this one was, supposedly, meant to be useful on her journey, it still counted!

Vanessa allowed her a moment to test how well the hat sat on her head. The girl’s face lit up when, despite its apparent size, the top hat fit quite snugly! It almost felt like she had been _destined_ to wear it her whole life. Its presence was strangely comforting, somehow already quite familiar. She could get used to this!

Hat Kid continued to experiment with adjusting her new hat as her mother began to speak. “This top hat has a very special ability. If you ever get stuck, ask it where to go, and it will point you to your objective.” She winked, a rare action from her. “I will let you find out exactly _how_ on your own.” It had certainly surprised _her_ when _she’d_ first found out. The girl looked slightly confused, but made no comment, so the queen continued. “It also has another ability. This may sound like an... _odd_ , request, but flick the brim of your hat while it’s on your head, will you?”

She obliged, and to her delight, in a poof of smoke her top hat had transformed into a frosty blue beanie, which was, a bit ironically, warm and toasty. Sewn onto its sides were some fluffy, artificial ears, which she remembered belonged to an animal her mother had once told her about. What was it called again? Care? Bare? Something like that. It also had two small, felt snowflakes attached to one side, and a larger and harder snowflake jutting out of the top. The girl’s face lit up all over again.

“ _This_ hat can, temporarily, of course, turn your body into solid ice! This statue-like state renders you immune to damage, but also immobile, and can be used as a very fast means of transportation, as well,” Vanessa informed the child matter-of-factly. “I also made it myself! You’ll most likely find lots of enchanted yarn on your travels, which I can use to make more hats and help you gain different abilities.”

Hat Kid stared up at her mother in disbelief. She’d _made_ this?! For _her_?! Tears pricked her eyes as she carefully removed the handmade headgear and traced a finger over its snowy patterns. She looked up, beaming from ear to ear. “Thank you!!!”

The queen returned the smile, though hers was far smaller. “Of course. Now, here is your task—“ She was cut off by a distant explosion, followed by a fierce rumbling. The sounds were new to Hat Kid, but _all_ too familiar to Vanessa. Memories of a similar racket surfaced, recollections of a time nine years past. Vanessa desperately hoped that if it was indeed another baby, this one would _at least_ have the decency to _not_ crash into her house. Unlike last time, however, there came not a baby, but the sharp ‘ _chink!’_ of breaking glass. It almost sounded like glass was raining down onto the surface of the planet, raising an uproar loud enough to drown out even Vanessa’s eternal storm.

The girl winced, covering her ears to protect them from the high-pitched assault, but Vanessa merely stared out a kitchen window in wonder. The noises ceased as quickly as they began, leaving a terrified child cowering beneath the table and a _very_ confused queen sitting in silence. After waiting for a minute, Vanessa slowly rose and cautiously opened the front door, surveying the bitter landscape. Everything outside looked perfectly normal, except for— wait. Was that...? No, it couldn’t be...

Time around Vanessa seemed to slow down as she approached the floating hourglass before her, emitting a bright light and warping its surroundings into complete darkness. It was eerily calm, not even the ongoing snowstorm penetrating the sand timer’s noise barrier. She wrapped a claw around the relic, feeling herself lift into the air. The hourglass’s effect on the surrounding environment soon dissipated, simultaneously setting her back down. The queen could _feel_ the power surging off of this thing. There was no doubt in her mind now. She was, undeniably, holding in her hand a _Time Piece_.

Only the oldest inhabitants of Earth would have recognized the objects; Earth once held many. At some point, however, they had mysteriously disappeared from every country, city, town; even from the moon!

It was for the best, really. Earth had to be practically re-built after a long, _awful_ war over the things. There had been a limited amount, only ten or twelve, and Time Pieces were not reproducible. They had, quite understandably, been collectively outlawed and scattered across the globe, but when multiple concurrent schemes to steal all of the Time Pieces and become all-powerful were brought to light, planned by the _governments_ of several countries no less, _all **peck**_ broke loose.

This used to be common knowledge, back in her day; but by now, Time Pieces had become obsolete. They hadn’t even had the privilege of becoming fairytales, since the war had greatly disillusioned everyone. Humankind was sick and tired of the ability to control time; to tell the truth, its disappearance was more of a relief than anything. Yet here was one now, right _in front_ of Vanessa, and judging by the sheer _volume_ of what she now recognized to be numerous Time Pieces breaking, surely there were _many_ more spread throughout the planet.

But what could she do with a Time Piece? Defeat the spectre, perhaps? No, one of the relics on its own was practically useless, only able to turn back time by a couple minutes, at most, and since these things were apparently being handed out like _candy_ she was sure he’d have some pieces of his own.

She remembered her prince. He might have left of his own volition, might be dead, may have been kidnapped... there were so many possibilities that it was pointless to attempt to explore each one in hopes of retrieving her love. To be honest, she didn’t really care.

All that mattered was that he was _gone_.

But if she could get her hands on a large number of Time Pieces... say, 40 or so... then she could go back in time. Back, to a time where she could still be her prince’s princess, to a time when he didn’t have to be punished by being separated from her, a time when she didn’t have a little brat running around her house and breaking everything it touched. A time when she could still feel something other than cold, when she could talk to people without them fleeing in fear, when she could find the strength to leave her home...

Yes, all these wonderful memories _and more_ were just out of her reach, and these new Time Pieces were her ticket!

This time, she’d make sure he ~~couldn’t~~ didn’t leave.

The queen’s mouth curled into a dark grin, and, firmly shutting the front door, she returned to the kitchen.

“Nessa, dear, it is unladylike to cower beneath the table. Now, as I was saying, your mission...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may be able to tell, I like post-apocalyptic worlds, and this version of Earth now falls under that category. I like to think that something happened to AHiT’s Earth that resulted in the planet becoming very different from ours.
> 
> Of course, if you don’t like the idea I completely understand. It’s not going to be a major plot point in this story, maybe I’ll reference it a few times here and there.
> 
> The main purpose it serves is an explanation of Vanessa and other Earthlings’ knowledge of Time Pieces.
> 
> Also, most of the story from here on out will basically be the plot of the original game, but I’ll try to change it up so that you don’t get bored.
> 
> Moving on...
> 
> Hat Kid believes that her meeting with Snatcher was a dream.
> 
> Vanessa has been training HK in order to A) overthrow a certain ghost and B) find her prince.
> 
> Most of the lands HK mentioned have, understandably, changed, seeing as the information on them that she has is hundreds of years old.
> 
> Vanessa has made a few [alterations](https://www.fiftyflowers.com/blog/rose-color-meanings/) to that hat she found in chapter 1. She has also (accidentally) used it before.
> 
> I’m honestly unsure whether you canonically need more Time Pieces to go back in time further, or if you only need one, but for the sake of plot convenience we’re going with the former.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid begins her exciting journey!

Hat Kid dozed peacefully in her twin sized bed, clutching the sky-blue quilt which covered her body. A faint smile was spread across her face.

Promptly, the candles flickered to life, accompanied by an ear-splitting, blaring noise. She quickly woke up, startled enough to quite literally jump a few feet in the air and hit her head on the roof of her bed’s canopy. The child then proceeded to fall out of bed, flat on her face, somehow also managing to bump into her nightstand and send her beloved top hat flying.

“ _Owwwww..._ ” she moaned, as the hat floated down and landed rather conveniently atop her head.

The alarm, meanwhile, began to fade into a very distorted voice. “ _GooOooOd morNInG! AnD weLcoMe..._ ” After that, the voice’s pitch dropped a few octaves and died out. The sound was actually pretty creepy, but that was to be expected from a broken alarm clock, and she was used to it anyways.

The girl pulled herself up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and yawning tiredly. Normally she didn’t get up so early, but her excitement from yesterday had been postponed. _Apparently_ , something had come up, and mother had needed to prepare a few things. No matter— she would devote every possible moment of today to her adventure, instead!

She trotted towards her bedroom door, still sleepy, squinting in an effort to see while she adjusted to the brightness. Not that the candles in her room were especially bright, but they contrasted the previous pitch-black darkness enough to be painful.

Once in the hallway, the child headed towards the bathroom. While brushing her teeth and hair, she took the time to reaffirm her objective.

Her mission was a simple one, in concept. Just collect 40 hourglasses and bring them back home so that mother could return the items to their rightful owner! In practice, however, the task was almost certain to be much harder than it sounded.

She had been charged with finding a specific type of hourglass called a ‘Time Piece’. These unique relics were, evidently, spread across the planet, and _extremely_ dangerous to boot. When a person obtained a Time Piece, no matter their intentions, they would become corrupt. Time Pieces tainted anyone who both had one and understood its power, often twisting their sense of morals and giving them a greedy desire for power. That was why mother couldn’t tell her _what_ exactly they did! Hopefully, no one else would figure out what the things were, and just brush them off as space-debris or something.

She squinted into the mirror, adjusted her hat for the fiftieth time, and secretly pocketed a hair tie, before exiting the second-floor bathroom. Mother didn’t like it when she put her hair up, since it left a dent, but the girl _hated_ how it got in her face at the most _inconvenient_ times. What if she was running from a bad guy, and couldn’t see where she was going because there was hair in her eyes?

Hat Kid returned to her room, looking around with a tight frown. After a bit of searching, she found her boots, one behind Mr. Stuffy and the other beneath her chair. Deciding she’d already wasted enough time, the girl quickly threw open her wardrobe (which was mostly empty, seeing as she only had one outfit), grabbed her cape, and made her way downstairs, donning the article on the way. She smiled when the jeweled clasp made a satisfying ’click’. “I’m ready, mom!” she called, bolting into the kitchen.

Vanessa glanced at her for a moment. “No, you’re not. Here.” Ice formed at her fingertips, infecting her left hand with blue. The ice jutted up, accompanied by noisy cracking, before ending in a sharp tip. “You _cannot_ go unarmed. Use this as a weapon to defend yourself, or even offensively if you so wish.” She held out the large icicle to her daughter. Hesitantly, the girl took it. _Cold._ She stifled a yelp. Hat Kid tried _desperately_ to pay attention to her mother’s words while shifting the freezing weapon between her hands, but the sensation of needles against her skin overpowered whatever advice Vanessa was trying to give. Something about people turning blue? Why would they— _ooooookay_ she could no longer feel her hands.

_Finally_ the queen finished speaking, and once her back was turned the child hastily shoved the icicle into her pocket dimension. She jogged to catch up to her mother, who had started walking towards the front door.

“Now, you will obviously need a quick and efficient way to travel to other continents. Fortunately, your ice cap can assist with that!” Vanessa simultaneously flung both doors open in a bit of a dramatic flourish. Hat Kid gaped at the outside in wonder. Seemingly endless plains of white stretched as far as she could see. Of course, that wasn’t very far, considering the snowstorm, but it was farther than she’d ever been able to see before! Through the whirling snowflakes, she could just _barely_ make out what appeared to be... some kind of wall? She shook her head. _Focus_. Nervously, the girl clung to the doorframe and stuck a timid foot outside. Finding said foot unharmed, she hopped over to the other side.

“Come along, Nessa,” chided Vanessa impatiently. “Now, do you see this platform?” the queen gestured to a light blue panel which was attached to the side of the house, a few inches off of the ground. A large, white snowflake was painted on its top. “Your ice cap can be used on platforms such as this one to travel to otherwise inaccessible places. I’m sure you will find several such panels throughout your travels.” The girl nodded, carefully studying the platform. “Bring back Time Pieces, and the more you obtain, the more panels I can create. These new panels will allow you to access new areas. However, I must warn you... I know not what lies on the other side. It has been many years since I have left the manor.”

Hat Kid’s eyes shone with a determined sparkle. “I can handle it!”

“Good. Now, when you are ready, jump onto the platform and activate your hat’s ability.”

Hat Kid did as she was told. Or, tried to. How was she supposed to activate her hat again? She stood on the platform for a moment, unsure, when she felt herself abruptly jolt up a short distance into the air. Before the girl could make any sort of noise to express her surprise, she realized her entire body had gone _numb_. She found herself unable to move, and, before she could even begin to process what was happening, landed heavily onto the panel and was flung a hundred feet off the ground.

If she could physically scream she certainly would.

Cold air and snow pelted her face like frozen knives, but she could barely feel them since her entire body was now composed of ice. The ground rushed beneath her at an alarming rate. She was _absolutely_ sure that she was going to die.

All at once she touched down, the blue panel she now stood on wobbling a little but otherwise unaffected. The ice making up her body disappeared in a poof of smoke, revealing the dazed girl it had encompassed.

Huh... that was actually pretty fun! Maybe she could get used to it, minus the part where she felt like she was going to die.

“What is this, bouncy boat?”

The new voice caught her off guard, and Hat Kid whipped around in a fighting stance. A burly, mustached man, wearing a blue suit and a _very_ out of place apron, glared down at her. She stared at him in confusion for a moment, before realizing he was referring to the panel she stood on, which was connected to some sort of dock and thus hovered a little ways above the ocean. Um... weren’t boats those things that go _in_ the water?

“All boats need to pay toll in **Mafia Town**... even in air! Mafia come to collect.”

The man stormed towards her, rather menacingly, and the girl panicked. What the heck was a _toll_?! It didn’t sound good. Was it some sort of attack? Was he attacking her? Was that what was happening?! Terrified, Hat Kid hit the man using all the strength she could muster, wielding her icicle— the blunt end, of course. He, to her dismay, was every bit as strong as he looked, and her hit barely knocked him backwards a short distance. The man appeared to be subdued, nonetheless, so she let out a sigh of relief, turned around, tucked away the icicle, and dusted off her hands.

The goon, as was customary for his kind, became _incredibly_ enraged by this little hatted _child_ who apparently was trying to accomplish _toll evasion_. Did she know who he _was_?! If _she_ thought she could make _him_ lose his job, he’d see how _she_ felt when she lost her _boat_! Ha! Rushing forward in bitter fury, the man stormed onto the “boat”, knocking the girl off balance, and proceeded to _hulk-smash_ the platform. To his surprise, it merely bounced back up, sending the two flying. Fortunately, toward the town.

She looked around, bewildered, back in the air _far_ earlier than she had anticipated or been prepared for. It seemed that without magic, the platform didn’t control where its victims landed or the distance they flew, and fortunately it wasn’t _broken_ , but she’d been launched before even getting a _chance_ to observe her surroundings! How was she meant to find her way back?!

The child folded her arms across her chest and waited for the landing, unamused. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all! This isn’t particularly love-centered or anything, unfortunately, but we finally get to begin the main story!
> 
> As a result of the post-apocalyptic state of the world which was especially prevalent in Vanessa’s time, she’s going to have a weird mixture of old technology and newer tech. Which is kind of canon, because Vanessa has a fridge.
> 
> Hat Kid’s alarm clock plays the droning sound that Vanessa makes when she’s nearby, someone please pecking help this poor child—
> 
> In this AU, Time Pieces tend to corrupt their owners, as long as that person knows what they can do. Vanessa is low-key too corrupted already to be significantly affected by this.
> 
> Since HK does not own a spaceship, we’ll be replacing its function as a mode of transportation with ice platforms! They can launch people much farther than in canon, but it was the best I come up with so just roll with it.
> 
> This is basically just the first two cutscenes of the game but slightly different, so if you get confused by my writing think of those.
> 
> Bis Bald!


	8. Welcome to Mafia Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid’s first impressions of the world outside of her home. Basically just Act 1 with a few alterations and additions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> —— signifies a short time skip.
> 
> Just a heads up, this is the longest chapter so far. I decided to cram all of Act 1 into one big chapter rather than split it into two short ones. Hopefully it remains interesting?
> 
> Also I finished HK’s updated ref: 

She landed forcefully on her feet, the inertia from her descent throwing her off center. Thankfully, she managed to at least _partially_ salvage her dignity, turning the slip up into a cute little twirl and ending with her arms spread wide. The girl congratulated herself and straightened, taking in her surroundings.

Hat Kid found herself in a dark alleyway, seemingly both very secluded and the _opposite_ of a good observation point. It dead ended in a large pile of garbage, so her only option to leave was via its entrance, which led into the light of day.

As she walked down the alley, she nearly tripped over the same man who’d gotten her into this predicament, pathetically propped up against the wall. Not knowing any other childish gestures to properly express her anger at him, the girl somewhat immaturely gave the man a resentful kick in the side. Immediately afterwards, she felt bad— he was out cold, and, judging by the pained expression on his face, clearly had not stuck the landing as she had. Hat Kid shook the guilt off, justifying her actions as karma, and continued on her path down the alleyway.

Not two seconds later she was interrupted once more.

Two large men plummeted to the ground mere _inches_ away from her face, both down for the count and suspiciously identical in every way to the goon she’d kicked moments earlier. The girl shrieked, frightened very badly from nearly being _crushed_ , and stumbled backwards a few feet.

She looked up, breathing heavily, in an attempt to discover the cause of the two men’s misfortune. Right on cue, a figure mostly hidden in shadow hopped on top of the men, stance triumphant. Before she could get a good look, the mystery person noticed they had an audience, and darted away. _Ugh,_ she was so _tired_ of no one giving her time to see stuff!!! From what she _could_ make out, the creature had had a blonde mustache and wore a red cloak. _Gee_ , she thought sarcastically, _what helpful information_.

It was, based upon circumstantial evidence, quite obvious that this mystery person had beat up two incredibly strong, burly men _three times_ their size, and Hat Kid decided that the most obvious choice would be to steer clear of such a powerful individual at _all_ costs. She politely chose to take the route _around_ the fallen goons rather than over them, and was rewarded with... what were these? Floating orbs? Filled with... green. Green jewel-things. Okay then. Maybe she should pick them up, in case she ever met whomever had dropped them.

Upon reaching the other side of the mafiosos, however, she quickly noticed many more green orbs. _Jeez_ , _someone_ was sure irresponsible! Look at this mess!

She followed and collected the orbs, which formed a very obvious trail into an old brick building. Perhaps, in another universe, she would have noticed how suspicious said trail seemed; but being the nine-year-old child that she was, the girl found herself attracted to anything shiny.

The interior of the building was rather dimly lit, reminding her of home, and also appeared to be some sort of... storage room? She couldn’t really tell what purpose it served.

Distracted, she examined the room’s contents and nearly bumped into another one of those big goons. Hat Kid stifled a shriek and darted away, hiding behind some casks. _Okay_ , she thought, _I really need to get a grip. Otherwise I’ll be screaming at_ everything _I ever see!_

She reached into her pocket dimension, retrieving the bright yellow hair tie she’d stashed earlier, and pulled her hair into a standard ponytail. Taking a deep breath, the girl dared a peek around the barrels. Two mafioso men stood in the middle of the room, talking to each other and apparently so invested in their conversation that she had remained unnoticed. She quietly edged past them, catching a bit of their conversation as she did so:

“Did fellow Mafia watch TV last night? Confusing science owl say small people can **jump double in air**.”

“I saw. This makes Mafia uncomfortable with body. Must go work out.”

She made a face. ‘Jump double in air’? Now _that_ was just silly! You couldn’t _jump_ on _air_.

Also, what was a ‘TV’? Some kind of animal?

She put a hand to her chin, deep in thought as she exited the room. Light washed over her, and she glanced up. Argh— she was still having trouble adjusting to how bright it was here! She realized that, even though she was no longer in the alleyway, her view was still blocked by a number of tall buildings. Hmmm... maybe she could climb onto that raised platform of grass?

Hat Kid jumped up, headed towards the wooden fence on the other side of the platform, and—

Woahhhhhh.

Miles upon miles of shimmering sea, broken up by the occasional boat or bird. In the crisp, blue sky floated a number of colorful... things. Wow, she hadn’t realized the sky was _blue_! Back home it had always been so overcast that she’d figured the sky was _made_ of clouds or something. Here, the few clouds littered along the horizon were so white and fluffy, and almost made her a little bit sleepy...

She shook her head, telling herself to concentrate, and shifted her gaze, immediately becoming distracted again. The town she’d crashed into was _amazing_. Vivid pennant strings hung over red, blue, and yellow umbrellas, surrounded by cyan roofs and luscious plants. She’d never _seen_ greeneryso, well, _green_ , nor vegetation so _huge_! The few plants Vanessa kept in the house seemed half dead most of the time, and were probably only kept around at all because of their oxygen-producing nature.

Most noticeable was the complete absence of _snow_. In fact, this island wasn’t cold _at all_! It was a nice, mild temperature— not too hot, like that time she’d burned her hand on the stove, but not freezing like the area outside of the manor either.

Oh, exploring this place was going to be _fun_.

**——————————————————————————————**

Hat Kid had been minding her own business, innocently trying to climb a tree, when a sharp pain shot through her leg. She sharply inhaled through her teeth, wincing and turning around. What had hurt her?

The answer came quickly— pitch black, rotund birds hopping at her feet, pecking at them while she hopped out of the way. The girl groaned, pulling out her icicle.

The mild heat of the island, it seemed, had been enough to slightly melt her weapon, making it even _more_ slippery and hard to wield than before. She gripped it, trying to ignore the cold seeping into her fingers, and swiped it around in hopes of scaring off the birds. They merely flitted out of the way or snuck up behind her. Why were these things so aggressive, anyways? She couldn’t recall doing anything that might upset them...

Except for maybe trying to climb that tree, which incidentally had a bird’s nest in it.

Whoops.

She backed up against the tree, smiling nervously in an attempt to calm the surrounding birds. Wow. Death by birds. This was certainly not the way she’d expected to go.

But Hat Kid had never been the type to give up easily. They were just _birds_ , after all! She could totally outsmart them. The girl ran at the birds in one last-ditch effort to escape, yelling and swinging her weapon violently. She managed to make it onto the pathway, but they followed at her heels, squawking angrily. Okay... she had one last idea.

Turning suddenly, the girl chucked her icicle into the midst of her attackers, launching it with every ounce of strength in her body. The thing crashed onto the cobblestone, immediately shattering into a million shards. She grimaced, and raised her hands to her ears.

Ever since the “statue incident”, the sound of ice shattering had terrified her. All she had to do was hear a sound that was _similar,_ and all of a sudden she was back, racing through the chilling halls, ever _fiber_ of her being _screaming_ at her to _run_. But it wasn’t enough—it was _never_ enough, no matter how far she pushed herself. She _always_ lost, every time, and sooner or later her pursuer would catch her. For a second she was almost _certain_ she could hear her mother’s angry voice behind her, _feel_ the cold, suffocating mist enveloping her, sense the tears muddling her vision while she tried _desperately_ to find air to breathe—

She was snapped out of it by a series of birds crashing into her, flapping and cawing frantically. The girl tried to wipe the tears from her eyes.

It seemed that her plan had worked! The birds were all hopping away in a panic, a few of them with chunks of ice caught in their feathers. She walked up to the remains of her icicle and sighed. It was useless as a weapon now.

Hopefully mother wouldn’t be too angry that she’d already broken it...

**——————————————————————————————**

From what Hat Kid had been able to gather in the past hour, she was apparently in Heiterburg; or, at least, she was in a town once known by that name. Now its inhabitants were mostly those big Mafia goons, who were strangely all identical to one another. Did all outsiders look alike? That would make things rather difficult.

It had taken her a while, but after an awful lot of eavesdropping, short conversations, and studying graffiti, she felt like she was actually beginning to understand what these Mafia guys were saying! The mafiosos’ tendency to rudely leave out articles, use the _present_ tense when referring to _past_ events, and speak in the third person had been _incredibly_ jarring at first, and it still took her a moment to decipher their remarks, but by now she felt like she was getting the hang of it!

According to the goons, the village had been christened “Mafia Town” after their takeover. Not a very creative name, but hey, she’d nicknamed herself “Hat Kid” so she couldn’t really judge. It seemed that at some point they had conquered Heiterburg, turning the island paradise into a smelly fishing town. After all, the only non-Mafia creatures she’d seen so far were birds, some tourist guy, a couple of old men, and (debatably) that mysterious figure from earlier.

She frowned, hopping over to a picnic table and sitting down. Sitting always seemed to make the world slow down— likely due to the fact that when she was on her feet, she rarely ever stood still. _Especially_ in a new place like this, with so much to explore!

The girl used her moment of peace and tranquillity to assess her progress. So far... well, not good. Definitely not good. She had yet to come across a Time Piece, or even a _trace_ of one! This town was _huge_ , and she was just one little girl! How was she supposed to know where to find a Time Piece? How did she even know that there _was_ one on this dumb island at all?!

Frustrated, Hat Kid brought a hand to her forehead. As she did, something purple and blurry took up her vision, tumbling to the ground. Her anger was replaced with surprise, and she looked down, stunned.

Her hat lie on the cobblestone floor, a little dented from its fall but otherwise fine. Of _course_! Her hat! What was that thing mother had said? “ _This top hat has a very special ability. If you ever get stuck, ask it where to go, and it will point you to your objective._ ”

She picked it up, punched out the dent from the inside, and began to closely examine the thing, turning it over in her hands. Hmm... how did she activate it? Maybe it would be like her ice hat, where it’d activate when she wanted it to? Hat Kid brushed off some dirt from the rim and donned her trusty top hat. _Alright, hat,_ she thought, _where do I go?_

_“_ GaaAAHH!” Her body jerked around at breakneck speed as the hat turned her towards her ‘goal’. The girl found herself staring at a tall bell tower. “Aha! A high vantage point! Great thinking, hat!” she beamed, patting her headgear proudly.

Hat Kid sprung to her feet, finding and following a road leading to the tower. Too late, she noticed the red-clad stranger from earlier, climbing a rope to reach the belfry. Once at their destination, they turned to face her.

“Hey you, down there! Don’t think I didn’t see you stalking me!” hollered the girl(?), putting her hands on her hips. She had some sort of accent, which was easier to understand than the Mafia, but still confusing.

Hat Kid shot her an offended look. “ _WHAT?!_ I was _avoiding_ you! If _anything_ , _you_ were stalking _ME_!”

The stranger rolled her eyes and waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Suuuuure. Anyways, us kids should stick together, not stalk one another. I mean, **Mafia Town** can be a really dangerous place! So whaddya say, wanna join my little rebellion?”

Hat Kid narrowed her eyes. How could she trust this person? What was that saying about strangers and danger? And besides, she’d made a pretty bad first impr—

“Oh, by the way, did you have anything to do with the **junk** falling from the sky yesterday?” She was about to reply ‘no’, but the girl continued. “Yeah? Yikes, looks like you’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do, huh? Tell you what, come up here and I can show you where some of your **junk** landed!”

Well, this stranger seemed awfully fishy, _and_ she seemed to have an annoying habit of assuming things, but _apparently_ she knew where some Time Pieces were so HK decided to trust her. For now.

Glancing around, she noticed a large red button. Now, one does not simply give Hat Kid a button and expect her not to press it. So, with full confidence that there would be absolutely _no_ consequences, the girl stomped the switch full-force.

In response, a mechanical whirr sounded. It seemed that the button had activated a nearby crane, causing it to swivel around and create a nice, sturdy platform to help HK get to the belfry. How convenient! Good thing there was no catch!

There was a catch. In order to actually set foot on the crane’s load, she’d have to climb onto the golden roof of the observatory next to her. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except... well, she couldn’t jump high enough to get onto the roof, and the only potentially helpful object she could see was a fire hydrant, which had no good areas to stand on.

After several unfruitful attempts (and numerous jeering remarks made by a certain mustached girl), Hat Kid felt ready to give up. The words “jump double in air” echoed in her mind, over and over... FINE! Fine. She had no other ideas, so abandoning _common sense_ at least couldn’t make things _worse_. The girl took a deep breath, closing her eyes to try and avoid the shame of doing something so obviously stupid, and then jumped. While in the air she tried to jump again, feeling like an idiot, but when she opened her eyes she found herself on the roof.

**_WHAT._ **

****

**THAT** was _ALL_ she had to do?! She could’ve saved herself _so_ much time and humiliation, but _nooooo_ , instead she’d wasted _ten flippin’ minutes_ just because the laws of physics didn’t feel like working in this crazy town!!!

Almost mindlessly, HK stomped to the top of the dome and double-jumped to reach the crane’s platform, muttering angrily to herself the whole way. She crossed her arms and tapped an impatient foot, not in the mood to question why the empty crane had triggered as soon as she’d set foot upon its cargo. Once she’d been brought close enough, the girl climbed two crates in the corner and leapt to the tower.

The hooded girl awaited her, smirking in a way that made Hat Kid feel even angrier. “Ha, wow, you made it! I didn’t think ya had it in you,” the stranger teased. “Follow me, rebel squad!” HK glared after her sourly for a moment, before giving in to the girl’s command.

The two jumped off of the tower, landing on the side opposite the way Hat Kid had come, weaving through scaffolding as they followed a brick road. The mustached girl came to a halt on top of a planter, and HK did the same.

“Hey! I think one of your **junk pieces** fell and smashed right into the market’s fountain. Messed it up real good.” The stranger pointed to her right, and though it was hard to make out since this ‘market’ place was so far away and at an angle, Hat Kid _could_ indeed see a magical glow coming from that area. “When going over there, just avoid making eye contact with the Mafia and you’ll be fine. Good luck, fellow rebel!” She pumped her fists into the air before dashing off, loudly shouting “See ya!”

Wow. She wasn’t even going to help? Whatever, Hat Kid was more of a loner anyways.

She continued along the path, nearly falling into a large, sudden gap. She gaped down. Dangerous-looking rapids surged out of a huge sewer vent, running into the ocean. She was beginning to notice a theme of everything in this town being abnormally large. Who had even built this place anyway? The mid-road ravine seemed a rather poor design choice, in her opinion.

She managed to cross over without falling in (Seriously! There was no bridge! How on _earth_ did those Mafia guys get across?!), discovering she could _also_ somehow dash while in midair. Because _of course_ she could.

Upon entering the market, the girl immediately noticed the damaged fountain. Water flowed out of the hole in its side, seeping into the cracked floor. Had— had no one even _tried_ to fix that? It’d been, like an entire _day_ since the Time Pieces crashed into Earth!

Speaking of Time Pieces, a familiar shimmer caught her eye. She turned to see a mafioso, examining an hourglass identical to the one her mother had shown her! Despite the clear absence of rain, the goon seemed to be holding an umbrella in his right hand, as well.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the Time Piece. He glanced up, startled, and looked between her and the hourglass as if to ask if she was referring to it. The girl smiled and nodded, believing they had reached a mutual understanding. “I’ll take that!” The goon grunted angrily, putting up a defensive stance. Oh. So _that_ was how this was gonna go, huh? Her smile disappeared and she ran up to the man, intent on taking the Time Piece.

Unfortunately, Hat Kid was unarmed, and her opponent wielded an umbrella. He easily blocked the much smaller child with his parasol, grinning victoriously. Ugh. Who knew umbrellas could be so useful? She’d have to get herself one of those— actually. Why couldn’t she have one... right _now_?

HK swiped the parasol right out of his grasp, beaming proudly. The Mafia man, despite his tough appearance, backed away in terror. Oh it was _on_.

“ _Down with the Mafia!_ ” she cheered, giggling in a way that was slightly worrying, coming from a child. She chased the man around the (still leaking) fountain, newly obtained umbrella slung over her shoulder. After four hits, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

She felt a little guilty. Was he... dead?

...

No, probably not.

Hat Kid turned her attention back towards her goal. The Time Piece floated next to the fountain, surrounded by a strange field of peace. The rest of the world appeared to be shrouded in darkness, and all outside sound was replaced by a calming melody. She lingered for just a little bit, catching her breath after that epic battle, before walking up to the hourglass and jumping to reach it.

She felt herself lift off of the ground, and began to spin in delight while the Time Piece echoed her movements. After a moment she was set back down, hourglass in hand. She grinned, stuffing it into her hammerspace.

1 down, 38 to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! I kinda rushed on a lot of this, so sorry if there’s anything that doesn’t make sense.
> 
> Hat Kid has PTSD. I don’t mean to offend anyone that has this condition in real life, so if I get anything wrong please tell me.
> 
> HK has difficulty understanding people’s different dialects, since she’s only ever heard two other voices before.
> 
> Heiterburg is the original name of Mafia Town in this AU, I’m sorry but I speak German and couldn’t resist—
> 
> The whole ‘avoiding Mustache Girl’ thing is based on my playthrough of Act 1, where I purposely explored for like an hour so that Mu would look dumb for calling me a stalker. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right— I don’t have a life.
> 
> That’s about it for now! See ya!


	9. Rats and Hats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile...

Vanessa watched her daughter’s frozen body shoot through the frosty air, disappearing into the stormy cloud cover. She grinned once the girl was out of sight, and turned with a swish of her torn dress. After all, she had a _lot_ to do before the child returned!

The queen glided to her front doors, leaving no tracks in the thick blanket of snow covering the ground. It wouldn’t have mattered if her steps created footprints, anyway— the downfall was so heavy thar her daughter’s small ones were already fading, and any prints Vanessa left herself would certainly be buried in no time at all.

Despite only being open for a couple of minutes at most, the doorway was filled with a sizable mound of snow, blocking the way. Ah. Nessa had left the doors open. _Of course_ she had. The queen groaned, rolling her eyes, and waved her fingers, which began to glow a faint blue. The mound quickly melted. Not into water, seeing as it was magical in nature, but rather into... nothingness. Really, though, she _hated_ using her magic for such _trivial_ tasks. She much preferred to save it to fend off intruders. Why, oh _why_ did her daughter have to be so incompetent?

She walked inside and promptly shut the doors, grabbing a key that hung from the wall and locking them tightly. There. That should, at the very least, minimize the amount of of unwanted company she received. She needed the next few hours to be as private as possible.

Vanessa trudged up the stairs, each step unleashing an equally painful creak. She _really_ needed to hire a professional to fix the old things.

Finally, she reached the attic. It was a dark, musty place, filled with cobwebs and old crates. She’d personally never liked it, and so generally kept her distance. Now, however, perhaps it could be useful for once. The attic, after all, _was_ the best place to keep something you wanted to protect. In order to access it, one had to traverse at least the first two floors without getting caught— an _impossible_ feat. Besides, even if they _did_ somehow get up here, they’d have to come _back down_ as well!

She crossed the expanse of rotting wood before her, eyes set on her target until— a sudden glint caught her eye. But it wasn’t the eerie glow emitted by her candles, nor the sharp, cold light pouring from the room’s large window. No, this was the kind of light that came from a reflective surface, the kind that bounced off of _ice_.

Now, a bit of ice might not seem a strange thing, considering the fact that Vanessa lived in a desolate landscape with nothing in it but ice and snow. For the queen, however, the presence of ice, _particularly_ when she was unaware of it, meant a hole. A crack, a leak, _any_ unwanted link between her home and the outside world. Ice meant that her fortress had some sort of deficiency that would create an extra entrance into her home, _without her knowledge_. Though she ensured that the outside conditions were uninhabitable, her own manor was a different story. The only exceptions were her beloved statues, but she knew for a _fact_ that none were located up here. No one had ever made it to the attic, after all, so she felt that none of her prisoners deserved to be placed here, anyway. 

Bottom line: if ice ever made its way inside, so could an outsider.

Vanessa narrowed her eyes, taking a step back and adjusting her position until the glimmer of light invaded her vision once more. Slowly, _angrily_ , the queen moved towards it.

She came to a portion of the wall where a lone box stood. A dirty old cloth was draped over half of the crate, revealing its contents— some dusty, hardcover books, stacked neatly and even in alphabetical order. She raised an eyebrow. Surely these belonged to her prince? He _did_ oh-so love his novels, after all. She’d been on the brink of banning the things as well, but he’d _insisted_ they were _vital_ to his studies, and he _couldn’t_ become a good king without them, yadda yadda yadda. In the end, he’d pleaded with such a _cute_ face that she just _couldn’t_ say no. She sighed, dreamily, before shifting her attention.

The box was slightly turned, revealing a small cavity in the wall. Not big enough for any healthy _adult_ to fit through, thankfully, but big enough for—

...

No.

N _o **way**_.

She couldn’t believe it.

Anger bubbled up inside the queen. No, mere anger was not the right term to describe her feelings. No, she was _livid_.

Glaring daggers at the hole, she roared like a wild beast.

**_“I have a RAT PROBLEM?!”_ **

****

She narrowed her eyes and lifted a clawed hand towards the crevice. Thick chunks of ice extended from the ground, sealing the hole with a loud crackle. Then, for extra measure, she kicked the crate against the ice-covered portion of the wall (knocking over the stacks of carefully organized books inside), and fused it to the floor with more of her ice. She stared at the box for a minute, breathing heavily, before scoffing and proceeding to her original destination.

How bothersome. Rats were absolutely disgusting creatures, in her honest opinion, and the woman could not possibly even begin to fathom how _anyone_ thought the hairy _things_ could be suitable pets. Perhaps Nessa had attracted such vermin— she’d always been rather a sloppy eater, after all. Well. She was a sloppy _child_ , to be accurate.

The queen stepped onto the small, wooden platform at the back of the room, her inky form looming over the lonely chest that sat on top of it. The chest was generally empty, merely a ruse, but for once it seemed the thing would get some use.

She reached towards its lid, but paused. The chest was practically _engulfed_ in dark fog. Vanessa straightened, bringing her hand in front of her face. It had an unusually vague shape, bordered by mist rather than the clear outlines she’d expected. Looking down, she realized that the rest of her body had a similar issue. Black fog fell from her form and pooled at her feet, almost giving off the impression that she was melting. The crimson gemstones on her chest and neck also seemed to glow brighter... worryingly so. She took a deep breath in an effort to calm herself, straitened her back, and focused her magic. She needed to compose herself, or this figure would fall apart, revealing her true form.

Vanessa slowly opened her eyes. No more fog. She smiled softly, returning to opening the chest. After scrutinizing the interior of the trunk and confirming it did _not_ house a colony of rats, she pulled out the Time Piece— _her_ Time Piece— and let the feeling of _power_ it gave off wash over her. The moment was fleeting, however, and she carefully placed the hourglass in the chest.

Oh, she absolutely could not _wait_ until she had 40 of these! To see her prince, feel his warm hands and his soft mane of hair...

And certainly, he’d be positively _ecstatic_ to see her!

Where _was_ that girl, anyways?

**____________________________________________**

Hat Kid raced through town, testing her newfound weapon. _Finally_ , something efficient she could use to fend off the crows! ...were these crows? Crows _were_ supposed to be black birds, so probably. Whatever they were, her little feathered foes seemed to be far easier to ‘get rid’ of with the umbrella than her icicle. Weird. Maybe ice just wasn’t very effective against fighting-type enemies? Nah, that just sounded like copyright infringement.

Regardless, she _did_ feel just a _teensy_ bit bad about defeating them. Even if she refused to believe it, there _was_ still a little voice in the back of her head that told her that every poof of smoke represented their untimely death. Besides, they _did_ have a somewhat justified reason for attacking her, considering she’d disturbed their unborn children and all, but that had been an _accident_! Couldn’t they give her a break?

She frowned, shooting a torn look at the birds, before dashing off. She’d only use the umbrella in emergencies, she decided. Just in case.

Once she was sure any aggressive birds were far away, the girl scouted her surroundings. Almost immediately, something, or rather someone, caught her eye— a strange figure, twitching in odd places and staring at nothing. They appeared to wear a mask, which had a green light shining in the right eye hole mimicking a pupil, and carried a rather large sack on their back. She tilted her head, curiously, and approached the stranger.

“ _Hi there, young one. I am from a far away land. I’ve seen every corner of the earth, and now I sell tiny pieces of my discoveries,”_ they greeted, turning slightly to face her. “ _You may call me the **Badge Seller** , for I sell and trade Badges. I can provide you with strong abilities and upgrades to your hat... if you have money, of course.”_

Upgrades to her already amazing hat? That sounded _super-duper_ awesome! There was only one problem, though...

“Um... what’s a ‘money’?”

They made a little noise that sounded sort of like a chuckle. “ _I suppose you wouldn’t know, would you? How silly of me, my apologies.”_ They broke eye contact for a moment and put a hand to their chin, seemingly thinking of a way to describe this ‘money’ thing. “ _Well, money is... something that you use to get things that you want. You give money to someone, and they give you something that you want in return. It’s called ‘buying’. Of course, different items are worth, or ‘cost’, different amounts of money...”_ They paused to see if she was still following. The girl processed the information for a moment, before nodding. “ _There are many different types of money._ _I have found that this planet’s most common currency is ‘Pons’, although some places also accept different forms of payment. In fact, I believe you have some already.”_

They held out a two-fingered hand, a green orb popping into existence in their palm. Ohhhh, so _that’s_ what those things were? ‘Pons’? If they were so valuable, why were they all over the place?

The Badge Seller seemed to read her mind. “ _Strangely enough, nearly every location on this planet generates Pons, and yet many people are still poor or work jobs. It’s a wonder anyone gets anything done...”_

They shook their head (well, more than it was shaking already), and raised their staff into the air. Three round objects flew out of their bag, lining up next the Seller and hovering neatly in a row.

_“These are the Badges I am selling today. I should tell you, however, that only one can be equipped at a time. Well, for now.”_

She studied the three Badges carefully. One of them had flies buzzing around it, eww! Definitely not that one, she decided. The girl instead pointed to the one with a cool propeller on it, although that seemed to be purely cosmetic.

“ _Ah, the **Hover Badge**. It allows you to automatically pull out your umbrella, saving you from deadly impact! Although I must apologize, you do not seem to have enough Pons to afford it.” _Hat Kid pouted for a moment, but turned her attention to the second non-gross badge. It had a picture of a bright red magnet on it.

_“That is the **Item Magnet Badge** , which automatically attracts nearby collectibles! It costs 50 Pons. Should you choose to buy it, this Badge will certainly help you obtain enough money to afford your first choice,” _the Seller supplied.

Hat Kid thought for a second, and nodded. It wasn’t like she had any other use for Pons at the moment. Just as she was about to grab the orbs from her pocket dimension, however, they flew out on their own! She watched, bewildered, as fifty gems shot from her hammerspace into the Badge Seller’s pack. At the same time, the Badge she’d bought flew towards her hat, attaching itself to the brim. She clapped once the display was over, leading the Seller to nervously rub the back on their head, embarrassed.

_“Er— thank you.”_ She beamed up at him (half-hoping they’d perform another trick). _“It’s... it’s best you get going. You’re here on a mission, yes?”_ Oh! Right! Her mission! _“Besides, I believe a friend of yours is in need of your assistance...”_ they added mysteriously. Huh? Friend? What friend? She waited for them to elaborate, but it seemed that the conversation was over. Whatever! She’d find out herself!

The Badge Seller watched as the small girl scampered off. She paused several feet away, noticing a group of nearby Pons being sucked into her pocket dimension, and squealed in delight, bouncing excitedly. They smiled inwardly, amused at the child’s antics.

_“Strange, to think one so innocent will become this world’s savior,”_ they murmured to themself.

They waited patiently until the girl was out of sight. Once she’d rounded the corner, they raised their staff and pounded it into the ground, triggering glitchy particles to engulf their entire body.

The figure dissipated into a cloud of purple smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being late! I’ve been both very busy and very lazy.
> 
> This is more of a transitional chapter, both because I couldn’t figure out a way I liked to go from the last one to barrel battle, and because I didn’t think I could fit the Badge Seller into the last chapter well.
> 
> Hopefully the humor makes up for the lack of plot development?
> 
> Anyways, here are some explanations!
> 
> So, remember when I said Snatcher has used the attic shortcut before? Yeah. A certain Prince may or may not have covered up said secret exit to prevent Vanessa from doing something similar to what she did in this chapter...
> 
> Also, remember how Vanessa’s current form is fake? It gets unstable when she’s angry, since that causes her magic to flare up, and, if her temper is not kept in check, will “fall apart”.
> 
> Hat Kid, contrary to her mother, is not a particular lover of death (although she occasionally enjoys violence). She’ll try to stay somewhat peaceable, except for maybe a few suckers who deserve it.
> 
> I accidentally gave Badge Seller too much dialogue but I like this interaction so...?
> 
> Also I will occasionally refer to them as just ‘Seller’, because Badge Seller is too long.
> 
> I may or may not have taken several liberties with their character...
> 
> Toodles!


	10. Barrel Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid ends her first day outside with a bang.

She began to understand what the Badge Seller had meant when arrived at the marketplace. A shrill, _very_ familiar voice rang through the air:

“Quit it!”

“You’re cooking is bad and you’re a bad person! Now let me go!!”

“What kind of man grabs an innocent little girl?!”

Hat Kid facepalmed. Based on those phrases alone, she rightly guessed that that mustached girl had gone and gotten herself captured by the Mafia. She clearly hated them, after all, judging by the graffiti she’d sprayed everywhere, the fact that she was so enthralled by their demise, and of course, the whole “rebellion” thing.

The child followed the incessant hollering to the opposite side of the Main Plaza. As always, however, HK was easily distracted. Her eyes wandered to three crates, one stacked on top of the other two. What caught her eye, though, was the bright light emitting from the gap between the boxes, which she was almost _certain_ hadn’t been there a few hours ago. The girl slowly moved towards the glow, now able to discern some sort of... red ball.

She reached towards the object, feeling her fingers touch down on something soft and wooly. It’s luminescence died down, revealing a red-and-white striped ball of yarn. Several strips of white felt stuck out at odd angles, and a wing made of the same material was attached to its side, even fluttering a little. This must be one of those enchanted yarns her mother had mentioned!

She snapped her fingers, sending the ball to her pocket dimension. Excitedly speculating what kind of cool new hat she had in store, the girl took off towards the dock—

“If you don’t drop me right now, I’ll bite!”

Oh. Right. The mustached kid. She skidded to a halt, turning around and following the shrewd voice. Conveniently, a large wooden plank was propped up against the iron railing which bordered the end of the market. She ran up the makeshift ramp, jumping off into an arc of Pons and doing a midair flip. The girl landed gracefully on one of those ice platforms, took a mental note of its location, and climbed over another metal fence before rounding a corner.

A few feet ahead, she saw a gap in the railing, which allowed access to a ladder leading downwards. She grabbed the ladder’s poles, daring enough at this point to slide down without stepping on the rungs, and found herself on a grassy platform, covered by a cobblestone path. Once she looked to her left, it became obvious where the other girl’s cries were coming from— multiple barrels, labeled ’TNT’, were stacked in a sort of pyramid, smack-dab in the middle of a small plaza. Four Mafia Goons seemed to be... d...dancing? On the bottom layer. She cringed, slightly, and glanced up. A fifth stood at the top of the pyramid, dangling the mustached menace from his left hand. 

He wore a rather sinister expression, and Hat Kid decided it would be in her best interest to intervene before things got ugly.

“Dude, get off me!” hollered Mustache Girl, kicking her legs back and forth in a futile effort to squirm out of the mafioso’s grasp. She quickly gave up, already depleted of energy from several minutes of struggling. Instead, the girl resorted to sticking her tongue out at her captor, putting as much fury into the gesture as she could.

Hat Kid raised an eyebrow at the action, but continued marching towards the pile of barrels. One Mafia turned to her, his carefree expression becoming threatening.

“Hey! Child! Shoo! Mafia can’t have child witness when Mafia teaching lesson.”

The girl put on the saddest, most _pleading_ expression she could muster, staring up at the man with wide eyes. He merely stared back, face still menacing.

After a while of just staring, Hat Kid decided the situation was going nowhere. However, she refused to be the one to back down, so...

She emulated the face the mustached girl had made, sticking her tongue out and blowing a loud raspberry. She heard a small snicker escape the prisoner above her, which was immediately silenced when the Mafia up top glared at his victim.

The annoyance of the mafioso in front of her, meanwhile, had quickly melted into anger. Huh. It seemed the gesture she’d done was considered rude here... good to know. The man seemed confused, a conflicted look clearly etched on his face. He hesitantly turned to his comrades, using one hand to scratch his head.

“This awkward for Mafia! Mafia not sure what to do.”

Another one spoke up, addressing the mafioso on top of the stack. “Boss, what do we do with eyewitness?”

Their apparent leader threw Mustache Girl high into the air, earning a terrified shriek from the latter. He pounded a fist into the now free palm of his other hand threateningly, looking down his nose at the small child below him. “Teach her lesson, boys!” The girl’s ongoing screaming grew louder, and the mafioso caught her by her foot _just_ in the nick of time, her face barely an inch away from a painful landing.

Oh no. Was this a boss battle? Great, another detour. Hat Kid groaned, slightly exasperated, before crouching defensively and brandishing her umbrella.

**…………………………………………………………………………………………**

The man she’d just had a standoff with attacked first, confidently stepping down from his barrel and rolling up his sleeves, revealing his rather intimidating, beefy muscles. Then, without warning, he lunged at her! The girl managed to dart out of the way in the nick of time, yelping as the man slid towards her on his stomach. She ran a safe distance away, a combination of anxiety and terror making her palms sticky with sweat. Fighting training dummies back at the manor was one thing, but now she was up against a _real_ _person_! She determined that her best shot would be to try and wear him out by forcing the man to chase her. He couldn’t have _that_ much stamina, right?

The mafioso, in the meantime, had pulled himself off of the ground. He growled as the girl did her best taunting-dance, even sticking her tongue out again as she’d done earlier. This prompted him to give chase, arms spread in front of him like some sort of zombie.

“Come to papa Mafia!” he shouted, as if he hoped that she’d actually heed the command.

She merely made a sour face in return, not being knowledgeable enough on idioms to understand what he meant. “What?! YOU’RE not my DAD!”

He made no attempt to clarify his statement, instead merely pursuing her with only the odd grunt. After several minutes, she discovered, the man seemed to have just as much energy as when the battle had begun. Jeeze! How was she supposed to beat him _now_?

Hat Kid narrowed her eyes in concentration. She didn’t really want to do it, but... well, she wasn’t really left with much of a choice. She’d have to actually fight back. Oh well. At least she’d tried, right? These guys probably deserved it, anyways.

Waiting until the mafioso had missed yet another attack and was recovering, the girl whipped around suddenly. The Mafia man seemed startled, unintentionally having had become used to the pattern of her running and him chasing, and was thus unprepared for a sudden change of pace. Hat Kid took the opportunity to sprint towards him, pressing her eyes shut and swinging as many times as she could. Once her umbrella started to cut through air rather than solid matter, she opened her eyes in time to see the single Pon and smoke that was what remained of her opponent. A pit formed in her stomach, but she took a deep breath to get rid of it. _Focus_ , she told herself. _You can feel guilty later, when your life isn’t on the line_.

She looked up, noticing a second mafioso had stepped down, and raised her weapon.

“Why you little...” he muttered, infuriated at the death of his comrade.

He wasn’t much harder to beat than the last. Even though she couldn’t catch the man off-guard in the same way, she merely hit him while he was on the ground after missing a lunge attack. For being so intimidating, these guys sure got wimpy when they got hit; sometimes, tears even formed in their eyes! Soon enough, the third goon stepped up to the plate.

“I’m gonna take you down!” he roared, confidently.

At first, he was just like his predecessors— lunge, hit, punch, dodge, rinse and repeat— until some sort of... red energy started emanating from his body. It kinda looked like he was on fire? What the _heck_?

“Child is predictable!” he sneered, laughing to himself and posing in a sort of superhero stance. The remaining low-tier mafioso clapped for him, while Hat Kid just... stared, confused. Shrugging, she ran towards her gloating foe, landing the final blow—

Only to be met with her own weapon, ricocheting off of his body and into her face. Huh? Why didn’t—

She was literally socked out of her thoughts, the man in front of her being the first Mafia to land a hit on her and deal some damage. She stood, glaring at him as she dusted herself off. Oh, it was _on_.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard or how often she hit him, the goon took no damage. Hat Kid discovered how _awful_ it was to be on the receiving end of a taunt. With each miss, anger bubbled up inside her. She _desperately_ tried to keep the boil down to a simmer, to no avail.

Something in her snapped.

As if led by some kind of buried instinct, the girl double-jumped into the air. She pointed all of her built up fury at her foe, who stood smugly beneath her feat. All at once she was flying towards him, high enough to make defending himself near impossible, and thwacked the man as hard as she could right on the head. His countenance changed to shock. “HOW DID YOU...?!”

Hat Kid simply returned the smug expression he’d worn seconds ago, giving a little wave.

“Bye bye!” she piped, innocently.

The goon poofed into a Pon, but something was different about this one. It was pink, and, instead of a gem, held a heart inside of it.

Thanks to her newly-acquired badge, the pink capsule (which she dubbed a “Heart Pon”) gravitated towards her, and was promptly absorbed into her body. Immediately, a feeling of peace washed over the girl, replacing the immense irritation from a minute ago. She felt... rejuvenated. In fact, the bruise on her face was gone! She sighed contentedly, before turning to the remaining thug. He appeared to be rather frightened of her, seeing as the child had defeated three of his friends, but tried to put up a brave facade.

“N—! No child will be in the way of Mafia!”

He seemed to copy his forerunner, using the same turning-red strategy. This goon was a bit smarter, at least, not letting overconfidence be his downfall. He even managed to dodge a couple of her newly learned homing attacks, though she landed the third.

The girl leaned against a barrel, panting. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. Whew! That was more running than she’d ever wanted to do in her _lifetime_. Just as she was beginning to relax, however, the clique’s leader reminded her that he was still there.

“ENOUGH!” She stumbled backwards, startled by the final Mafia’s outburst. “Mafia won’t bow to little girl! Prepare to feel Mafia’s wrath!!” He tossed the mustached girl over his shoulder like she was a mere lump of coal, and then did a... spin? She just squinted towards him, confused, as he grabbed a TNT barrel from... somewhere, raising it high above his head.

“See if girl can handle this barrel!” he shouted.

Before she could react, the mafioso hurled the barrel towards her, and— wait, were those _SPIKES_?! Who in their right mind would attach _spikes_ the the side of a _barrel_?! Well, then again, she wasn’t entirely convinced that these Mafia guys were in their right minds, or for that matter even _had_ minds at all. How had that guy even _thrown_ the barrel without getting scratched up himself, anyway?

The barrels were actually easier to dodge than she’d expected. The mafioso leader was about as good at aiming as a Stormtrooper (not that she knew what that was), and it only took five barrels for him to get impatient.

She quickly discovered her mistake.

Never, _ever_ call part of a “boss fight” _easy._ As soon as she noticed the spiked barrels weren’t particularly hard to dodge, the Mafia decided to up the difficulty. Great, she’d _jinxed_ it. Rather than roll away, the new barrels bounced in circles around the pile of their brethren and— **_EXPLODED_?! **Was this guy _INSANE_?!

She ran for dear life, shamelessly screaming. She’d rather look like an idiot and live than maintain her dignity and die. If she had to sacrifice her vocal chords in the process, so be it.

“Do not think about avoiding barrels!” Oh _screw_ him, she’d think about it all she wanted!

Thankfully, she managed to survive several close calls, although one managed to singe a lock of her hair. Her opponent once again became frustrated with her not-dead-ness, and _finally_ stopped throwing around bouncy incendiaries like the maniac he was.

“This lead nowhere! Mafia need take care of this Mafia style. Prepare to feel what Mafia do to old ladies!” She frowned. Okay, she’d felt kinda bad about the other four Mafia, but this guy _100%_ deserved what was coming to him.

The man jumped down from his spot atop the pyramid with a _thud_ , stalking towards Hat Kid threateningly. Thanks to his underlings, however, the girl knew exactly what to do. She followed the same pattern of attacking, dodging, etcetera until he, like the others, turned red.

“That’s all you got?” he mocked her, apparently not having had learned his lesson from the third mafioso. She grinned in response, double-jumping to get a good angle.

“YOU CAN JUMP?!” he yelled, genuinely surprised. Huh. He must not have been paying attention while his thugs were attacking, for whatever reason. Eh, it was still fun to see the utter confusion scrawled all over his face.

She homed in on him, bopping the man over the head and getting rid of his “red state”. He tried to turn around, still unable to process what had happened.

Although he seemed to have more health than his thugs, the man wasn’t much harder to beat. She just needed to hit him until he “caught fire”, then knock him out of his red state with a homing attack! After repeating this a few times, the mafioso collapsed, beat-up and exhausted.

Just then, a spiked barrel rolled into the man from off-screen, immediately exploding upon impact. He was sent shooting through the air, yowling and holding his buttocks in pain, eventually becoming no more than a twinkle in the sky. Honestly, good riddance— even the Mafia didn’t deserve an arsonist lunatic like that.

What the child was focused on, however, was the Time Piece that had flown out of his pocket, creating another weird field of peace. So this whole fight _hadn’t_ been for nothing! Hooray!

She reached up, grabbing the hourglass as it soared over her head.

The mustached girl came bounding towards Hat Kid, apparently the one who’d sent the mafioso flying. She smirked, putting her hands on her hips as she approached.

“Pfft. Can you believe them? What a bunch of losers.” Despite her brave tone, Hat Kid could sense the underlying relief in the girl’s voice. She’d truly been afraid, in that moment, that the Mafia would kill her. Hat Kid was afraid to wonder what would have happened if she’d never interfered...

“Hey. You’re alright, new kid. Do you have a name? Mine’s Mustache Girl, or Mu, for short.”

Huh? Her name was ‘Mustache Girl’? Not that Hat Kid was in any place to judge, for obvious reasons, but she’d sort of expected something... else, honestly. A _real_ name.

Oh! Right! Her name! But... which name should she give? She wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of everyone around here calling her ‘Nessa’, or worse, ‘ _Va_ nessa’, but did she really want everyone to refer to her as ‘Hat Kid’? Well, it probably didn’t matter, since most inhabitants she’d met so far called her something along those lines, anyways, but still! In fact, did she even want to give this _stranger_ her name? Sure, she’d helped her retrieve an hourglass and finish off that mafioso, but you could never be too careful...

Mustache Girl, meanwhile, just stood kind of awkwardly. She brought a hand to her face, fake-coughing into it uneasily. After a few seconds of silence, she decided she probably wasn’t going to get an answer.

“No? You shy? That’s cool. You’re a ‘less talk, more fighting’ kind of girl, I take it.” Hat Kid looked up, slightly startled. Looks like she’d taken too long to answer. Oops! Maybe it was for the best.

“That **thing** you grabbed there...” Mu pointed to the Time Piece, which, interestingly, had shrunken to fit in Hat Kid’s hand. “Are you collecting them? Because _I_ know where there’s more of them.” Well, _that_ caught the child’s attention. She nodded enthusiastically, her face lighting up.

Mustache Girl moved her pointer finger from the hourglass to a building in the sky, held aloft by a massive geyser. It appeared to be quite important, seeing as it was the island’s centerpiece. Hat Kid stared up at it in shock. How on _Earth_ had she missed that?

“They’ve been raining from the sky ever since you arrived. I’ve seen the goons bring them to their headquarters waaay up there.” _Headquarters_? Hat Kid frowned, contrasting the grin that had spread across Mu’s face. “We should go up there and get your junk! It’ll be fun! I’ll take any opportunity that involves messing up the Mafia.” Hat Kid disagreed, to be honest. This sounded like a _terrible_ idea. The Mafia brutes were stupid, sure, but they weren’t _that_ stupid. Surely the place would have lots of security, not to mention a high concentration of Mafia. But... she didn’t really have a choice, did she? She _needed_ those Time Pieces— if she didn’t get them, mother would be _furious_. Besides, Mustache Girl seemed to know her way around, right? She _was_ a local, after all. What could possibly go wrong?

“You with me, buddy?” Mustache Girl held up her right hand, expectantly.

Hat Kid just stared at her, looking back and forth between the girl and the hand. She raised an eyebrow, confused. Mu snorted.

“What? Never heard of a ‘high-five’, before?” she taunted. The child just shook her head, genuinely. Mustache Girl’s expression changed to a disbelieving frown.

“Aw, gee, kid, it’s like you’ve been living in total seclusion your whole life or something.” Hat Kid laughed nervously. “Whatever. Okay, well, just slap your right hand against mine.” She did as she was told, albeit with a little hesitation. “There! Now you know a basic gesture that most _normal_ people learned before primary school. Congrats.” Hey! You couldn’t expect her to know _everything_ already! She’d just gotten here _today_! Besides, she didn’t even know what ‘primary school’ was, so _technically_ she _had_ learned it before whatever that was.

“Wait a sec, let’s redo that, but like, more epic!” Hat Kid shrugged, backing up a bit. Mustache Girl counted under her breath, “One, two, three!” In sync, the two children jumped up, high-fiving each other in a suitably epic manner. Mu smiled. “Great! It’s official now, we’re partners in crime! Or, well, not-crime... you know what I mean!” With that, she darted off again, shouting a quick “See ya!”

Wait. Did that mean they were _friends_ now?! Hat Kid bounced up and down, squealing excitedly. She’d never had a friend!!! Well, not really, anyway. Mr. Stuffy didn’t count!

She skipped down to the docks, humming a made-up tune to herself. Once there, she searched around for a minute— the ice platforms blended in with the sea in an unfortunate way— and eventually managed to find what she was looking for. The panel that had been the beginning of this crazy journey. It was weird to think so much had happened in one day!

After inspecting the panel to be _absolutely_ certain the Mafia goon from that morning hadn’t damaged it, she hopped on, equipping her ice cap. Hat Kid turned towards the town, catching one last whiff of the sea’s salty scent and taking in the sight of Mafia Town at sunset. Sighing, she closed her eyes, and was plunged into cold.

**———————————————————————————**

The girl opened her eyes to snowflakes and darkness. Her home looked the same as it always had, yet somehow, it seemed so much more dreary and melancholy. She supposed it was the sharp contrast in weather, temperature, color, and the like, but the feeling of estrangement almost made her want to jump back onto the panel and go right on back.

She shook it off, trudging through the snow tiredly. She nearly tripped on one of the front steps; it seemed that she still needed some time to readjust to the low light levels she’d grown up with.

Upon grabbing the ice-cold handle, the child found the door was locked. She thought it was an unnecessary step, considering the massive mound of snow piled at the foot of the door, but who was she to judge? Shivering and depleted of energy, the tired girl slowly knocked.

Heavy, fast footsteps approached, firm and resolute but also sounding rushed, as if their owner were hurrying. One door flew open, knocking Hat Kid backwards a short distance.

Her mother stood in the doorway, fingers clawed and lips curled into a wild snarl. She seemed rather angry, although Hat Kid couldn’t possibly guess what for.

“ _WHO DARES—_ oh, Nessa, it’s just you.” She visibly relaxed, becoming more exasperated than anything. “What took you so long? I was getting— worried.” She hurried the girl inside, to prevent any more snow from getting in. Hat Kid stumbled through the doorway, yawning. The queen squinted at her for moment, before giving a disapproving look. “I thought I told you not to put your hair up.”

“‘M sorry...” she mumbled, reaching into her hammerspace and retrieving the two Time Pieces she’d obtained. Vanessa snatched (ha) the relics from her grasp, looking them over with a slightly crazed expression.

“Yes, yes! _Very_ good, Nessa! Oh, that leaves 37~!” She giggled to herself, before remembering her daughter was still there. “Well? What are you still doing here? Shoo,” she ushered. “Go get cleaned up and put yourself to bed. But I want to hear _allll_ about it in the morning!” Hat Kid didn’t need to be told twice. She stumbled upstairs, fumbling to get the clasp on her cape undone. Once it was off, she lazily tossed the object in the general direction of her wardrobe, and set her hat on top of the nightstand. Too tired to do anything else, the girl collapsed onto her bed, allowing herself to be taken by the lull of sleep...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid’s finally back home! I wonder what she’ll do tomorrow?
> 
> I changed several parts of the fight in this chapter from the original game, to make it a bit more interesting. I don’t want to just recite the canon’s events, since let’s be honest, that’s not particularly interesting. I’m not sure if it’s interesting even now, but oh well. This is more of a ‘practice’ boss battle, anyways.
> 
> Hat Kid learns how to blow raspberries be smug, and high-five. She doesn’t know a lot of the actions that we know and love, yet, but she’ll learn as we go.
> 
> For some reason, her homing attack originates from instinct. I wonder why...
> 
> I accidentally created a parallel between Vanessa and Snatcher, that legitimately wasn’t intentional but I find the idea kind of funny so...?
> 
> Not too much else to say. Sorry if you found this chapter boring :(


	11. Frozen Cookies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cue the cliché dream sequence...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for not posting this on Friday, I had to fix a lot of it and the ‘Coronavirus craze’ isn’t helping.

Thousands of swirling, vibrant colors overwhelmed her vision. They shifted and slid past one another, some growing into large splotches of different shades while others faded away. Her head was pounding, its dull ache and the ringing in her ears only contributing to her confusion. Slowly but steadily, the colors began to pull themselves together, forming a blurry image.

The blaring in her head grew increasingly louder as the moving picture became more discernible, becoming deafening until—

Silence.

Complete and utter silence, not even the kind of tranquil quiet with white noise in the background. Just... nothing. Cold, empty noiselessness. The silence forced her to focus on the now-clear image before her.

It was best compared to one of those pictures that seems relatively normal at first glance, but gets worse the longer you look at it. What she saw appeared to be outer space, which was fine and dandy, but she almost immediately noticed several odd features. For one, several chunks of land floated like a chain of extraterrestrial islands. Each piece of land was covered by a massive, transparent dome, and they were all linked together by thick metal pipes. 

Only then did she catch sight of the ships— hundreds of spacecraft, flocking around the domed islands like flies to an unprotected meal. Some ships seemed large enough to be a house, and were vaguely building-shaped as well. However, the large majority were smaller, built with sleek designs and armed with heavy artillery.

Things only got weirder from there; a few _massive_ cookies zoomed past, and was that a _whale_ in the distance?!

The scene shifted, and suddenly she was looking up, out of a large glass window. The girl could feel herself being roughly lifted by someone’s delicate hands. They brought her to eye-level and looked at her, their face shrouded in shadow. Either they were very big, or she had become very small. The child felt tiny in comparison to them, and instinctively shrunk back as much as possible. They gave off a certain aura, tainted the air around them, and she did not like it. Something was wrong, this person was _dangerous_ , she could feel it. Thankfully, she was lowered, and the girl tried to get her eyes to focus. Her surroundings were fuzzy— from what she could make out, two figures stood closest to her, one very tall and the other somewhat short, while several more watched idly in the background. The noises she heard were strange to her. A dull hum, many different chirping noises that seemed to reverberate off of one another, a clinking sound like shattered glass, but milder. She wanted to cover her ears more than anything, to go back to the lonely but orderly silence, but her arms felt weak and small.

Suddenly, she was raised high into the air, crying out a little in protest. She touched down onto something warm, something soft...

The child felt something being set atop her head, impairing her vision and darkening the environment into pitch-black. She tried to get the thing off, but for some reason her motor skills refused to cooperate. Great.

All other noise was drained out by a noisy rumbling, the kind that huge jets made. Her surroundings started to vibrate, then quake. Wherever she was at the moment, it was shaking pretty violently! All at once, a huge force pressed down on her head, and she felt a sensation like being sucked downwards. The girl squeezed her eyes shut, trembling not only from her jerking movements, but from sheer terror. Due to the outside volume, she couldn’t really tell if she was just crying, or screaming as well, but it didn’t matter. She just wanted it to _end_.

And finally, after what felt like _hours_ , it did. A bright light penetrated even the darkness caused by the thing on her head, and if she’d thought the rumbling was loud, it was _nothing_ compared to what she heard now. Hot pain shot through her body, evaporating her tears and never really fading away. She would have screamed, had she not lost her voice from doing so previously. It was clear _something_ had exploded— and nearby, too. In fact, she might have been in the center of the explosion, and at this point she honestly wouldn’t be that surprised if _she_ had exploded, but who knew.

Then she was plummeting, the extreme heat replaced with extreme cold in a matter of seconds. She hit something hard, the structure giving in with a thick ‘crack’. Wet seeped into her body, accompanied by tiny needles of ice. She was a sobbing mess, by now, confused and hurt and tired and hungry.

Cold, spindly fingers wrapped around her body.

**______________________________________**

Hat Kid bolted up, choked sobs escaping her lips as she attempted to just _breathe_. She was cold and clammy, and she feared that real tears were rolling down her cheeks. _Breathe, Nessa_ , she told herself, one of the few times she’d ever call herself by the unwanted nickname. _It's just a dream,_ she said, _it can’t hurt you_.

But it _had_ hurt, hurt more than anything she’d ever felt before. That was what was so scary about it.

She slowly forced herself to shift her vision to the right, the broken alarm clock reading “5:47”. Nearly a full hour before her alarm was scheduled to wake her! Realistically, she had no idea whether that time was accurate or not, but it _felt_ pretty early nonetheless so she didn’t care. The girl shakily got out of bed, promptly realizing she was still wearing her boots. In fact, she hadn’t even really been sleeping beneath the covers— just on top of them. Oh, right. She’d been so tired last night, she basically conked out the second her head hit the pillow. Hat Kid shifted her gaze to her clothes and did her best to straighten the wrinkled fabric. She only had one outfit, after all!

The girl went around the room, gathering her discarded accessories, in a crude attempt to distract herself from the nightmare. She sloppily donned them, more as a way to ground herself than anything. The familiar actions helped bring her mind back to the real world. Once she was basically ready, however, the child found herself unsure what to do.

She decided that _maybe_ she could sneak a cookie from the kitchen— her nightmare had made her pretty hungry. Mother would never know, right?

Tiptoeing as quietly as possible, given the creaky floorboards, the child opened the door of her room connected to the hall. Mother didn’t usually sleep, sure, but she still spent a large portion of time in her room, and Hat Kid was better safe than sorry. She made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen, peeking around corners just in case the queen had decided to hang out in a different room that day. At long last, she threw open the refrigerator, carefully sifting through its contents until she found them: a slightly frozen tray of ice-cold cookies, sitting rather lopsidedly at the bottom of the lower shelf. Bingo! She grabbed one, and hastily dumped everything she’d moved aside back on top of the platter.

“What are you doing up so early?”

The girl squeaked, startled, and stuffed her prize into her pocket dimension before whipping around. Her mother stood intimidatingly before her, arms crossed. The child pulled her mouth into a wide, undoubtedly forced smile.

“You’re an entire _hour_ earlier than your clock, no? I’ve never known you to be a morning person.” Hat Kid gulped, tugging at the collar of her cape. Vanessa narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t sneaking _cookies_ again... are you?”

“W-what? No! O-of course not! I was just, uhm... hungry?” Her excuse accidentally came out as more of a question. She laughed nervously.

Her mother didn’t look like she believed her, and was about to say as much when a deep rumbling noise interrupted. Hat Kid looked down at her stomach, noticing for the first time how pain seemed to radiate from it. She winced.

“Hm. I suppose you didn’t eat much of anything yesterday, now that I think about it...” It was true, she realized. The only meal she’d had all day was lunch, and that had _hardly_ even been a proper meal.

The girl had been basically _starving_ after her ‘bird encounter’, and bought a tuna sandwich from one of the Mafia’s stalls with a few Pons. The thing had been cold, mushy, and bland, much like the food she was used to at home, but at least it gave her some energy.

Still, that was practically _ages_ ago, and her stomach was _on fire_. Especially due to that battle she’d ended the day with! She took advantage of this, mustering the most _pathetic_ and _pitiful_ whimper she could.

“ _Fine_ , I’ll make you something. But don’t go through the fridge again, you’ll mess up my system,” the queen sighed. ‘System’? It looked more like a pile of supposedly edible items thrown carelessly into the fridge, to Hat Kid. Maybe this was one of those ‘organized chaos’ situations?

Vanessa, meanwhile, stalked towards the refrigerator, nonchalantly knocking her child out of the way. She rummaged around the inside of the appliance, throwing out several old foodstuffs and containers along the way. After many frustrated groans and comments along the lines of her really needing to “clean out this old thing” (The Queen had complained about the fridge’s clutter for the past nine years, with no amount of actual progress made on her end), she pulled out a fairly large plastic box. “Ah! _Here_ we are,” she exclaimed, holding her discovery in the air.

Five minutes later, Hat Kid was eating the gooey, soggy mush otherwise known as rolled oatmeal. It was plain and tasteless— her mother never added any kind of flavoring to oatmeal— but at the very least it satisfied her hunger, just a bit. Vanessa sat at the opposite end of the table, drumming her fingers against the top impatiently.

“So. What did you do yesterday? I want _every. Single. Detail._ ” Hat Kid swallowed, not noticing the shift in her mother’s tone.

“Hmmm... well, I landed by some docks,” she started, tapping a finger on her chin. Docks. Well, that was about what the queen had expected, at least not much had changed in that aspect. “But then this _super_ buff-looking guy came up and said something about a toll? And then he punched the ice platform _super_ hard, and I got catapulted into town!” Vanessa choked on nothing.

“ **What.** ”

“Yeah! It was pretty annoying.” She folded her arms and stuck out her tongue. “But anyways, there were actually a _ton_ of guys who looked _just_ like him all over the place! And also some mean birds. They chased me all over the place, it sucked! But I showed them, ha! See, I... I...” She trailed off, realization washing over her. The queen quirked an eyebrow.

The girl looked up at her mother with a guilty expression well-known to the queen. Oh, great. What had she done _this_ time?

“Um... I-I’m really sorry and I didn’t want to do it but I didn’t have any other choice and they were being really unreasonable but it isn’t my fault because—“

“Nessa, **_Nessa_** , slow down. Get to the point. What did you do.”

Hat Kid took on a sort of deer-in-the-headlights look, but eventually took a deep breath and quietly admitted, “I... I sort of, um... broke the icicle you gave me.”

Vanessa stared at her. _Already_? Well, it was certainly surprising that the thing had been shattered on the _first day_ , but definitely not the horrific, punishment-deserving mistake she’d been expecting. Actually, she’d _intended_ the makeshift weapon to break! It was made of _ice_ , obviously it wasn’t made to be the easiest thing to wield. In fact, this was, if anything, a _good_ thing.

The child interpreted her mother’s silence as anger, and hurriedly added, “B-but! I-I got another weapon! And i-it’s actually e-even b-better! See?” She pulled out a blue umbrella, holding it towards her mother with trembling hands. Well _that_ snapped Vanessa out of her thoughts.

“A— an _**umbrella**_?! You’re telling me you’ve been defending yourself with an _umbrella_?!” The queen squinted, grabbing the parasol and examining it. The thing didn’t seem particularly special in any way. Just a plain old umbrella. Did the girl _really_ expect to survive on _this_?

“I-I know! It’s just an umbrella, but I _really_ like it and it’s _so_ much easier to use than the other one _please_ don’t make me go back to the icicle _pleasepleaseplease_ —“

“Okay! Fine! Just _be quiet._ ” Vanessa turned back to the parasol in her hands, thinking for a moment. An idea formed in her mind. Hmm... yes! This could work... it’d be even more convenient than the icicles, actually! “Alright, you can continue to use this... umbrella. Though I’ll have to make some alterations, which shouldn’t take too long. Do continue.”

The girl’s face lit up. “ _Thankyouthankyouthankyouuuu_ ~!” She cleared her throat dramatically.

“Okay so uh where was I? Oh yeah. So there were also some old dudes, I think they were people that lived on the island before all the Mafia— that’s what the buff guys are called, by the way— started bullying them or something? Oh! Oh! And I saw this girl, but like, with a mustache! I didn’t know girls could have facial hairs. Also, she really hates the buff guys I think, I mean, I kinda get why ‘cuz most of them are big meanies, but anyways, she showed me a Time Piece! One of the Mafia guys had it, but I stole his umbrella (that’s how I got my umbrella) and hit him a bunch and he turned into smoke and I got the Time Piece—“

Vanessa had completely lost the conversation at this point. Her expression just got more and more confused as the girl kept speaking. Apparently, she could be quite talkative when excited.

“—and then I met a person who was really twitchy all over, it was kinda creepy, but they sold me a ‘Badge’! And did some cool magic stuff, too. So then I found a yarn— oh! The yarn!” She pulled out the magical ball of thread, thrusting it towards the bewildered queen as she continued. “So, as I said, I found a yarn, but then I saw the girl again! And this Mafia guy and his dumb cronies had captured her or something, and I think they were gonna do something really bad to her, so I went over there and was all like ‘hey!’ and one of them was like ‘>:(‘ and I was like ‘pthbbbt’ and he was like ‘oh no boss what do I do’ like a total scaredy-cat, and the other guy said ‘teach her lesson’ and did this cool fist-pound thing and then I fought, like, four buff dudes all by myself! Except not at the same time so I guess it’s less cool. But then their leader I guess started throwing _bombs_ at me with _spikes_ on them?! So I totally beat him up too and the girl— her name’s ‘Mustache Girl’, by the way— kicked a bomb at _him_ and then he blasted off into space or something? And then I got another Time Piece and she showed me a thing called a ‘high-five’ and I think we’re friends now! Cool, right?”

The Queen stared at her child, mouth agape. She absentmindedly clenched the piece of yarn, _barely_ noticeable fragments of ice forming around her fingertips.

She’d sent the girl to Heiterburg first because it was most likely the _easiest_ and _friendliest_ place out of all of her options, only to find out that it had been invaded by _Mafia_ in the past... what, ten years? How long had it been since she’d last heard news of the town? Nevermind. But she had _done so_ with the _impression_ that the people living there wouldn’t put up any fight for the stupid hourglasses! Yet it turned out there were _explosives_ involved?! Another thing— where had the girl picked up so much _slang_? The Mafia? Or, worse, this new ‘friend’ of hers? How had the girl even managed to defeat _six_ mafiosos in the first place? Was she—

Was she really that strong...?

Hat Kid bounced in her chair expectantly. Eventually, her mother grinned, looking up. “Well! You’ve been... busy!” She giggled, hollowly. “I must say, I am surprised. However.” Her expression became solemn. “From now on, you are forbidden to speak with strangers. I should have made it a rule in the first place, but I suppose I wrongly expected you to be smart enough to already know not to.” Hat Kid’s face fell. What? _Why_?!

Her mother seemed have anticipated such a reaction. “I know you are excited to explore the world, dear. But you do not understand how _dangerous_ strangers can be. They want to _use_ you. You are powerful enough to defeat _six_ men who have three times your muscle mass, after all! Your potential for being used as a means to gain power is _through the roof_. Why would _anyone_ pass up an opportunity like that?” That, of course, included the queen herself, but Hat Kid didn’t need to know that. “This new ‘friend’ of yours, and any you make along the way... I have no doubt that their motives will be selfish. They will betray you, each and every one.”

The words stung. Like the hundreds of cuts she’d gotten from the crows, but on the _inside_. How could mother _say_ that? It wasn’t true! Mustache Girl would _never_ do that. They were _friends_ , weren’t they? Sure, she’d only known Mu for a few hours, but... she wouldn’t! And neither would any of her other friends. Yeah, she’d make _tons_ of friends! She would prove her mother _wrong_! Even if it took her years... even if she _was_ just being used by everyone... she’d find the good in them. And she’d have friends, _real_ ones. No! Better than friends! She’d have a _bestie_ , at least one. No matter what it took.

Sensing the child’s fury, Vanessa sighed and knelt down. “I only want the best for you, don’t you see? It’s a cruel world. I am only trying to _protect_ you. Please.” She cupped the girl’s head in her icy, dead hand. “You know I love you.”

**————————————————————————————**

Mafia Town was hardly recognizable. In fact, Hat Kid had almost thought she’d landed in the wrong place, at first! The clear blue sky had been replaced with a dreary grey overcast, much closer to the weather the girl was used to. She was rather disappointed— she’d been looking forward to getting away from the cold, wet weather back home, but it seemed like the climate had just followed her.

Hat Kid tramped into town, observing her gloomy surroundings. It wasn’t as cold as it was back at the manor, though a bit more humid. Despite the howling wind and threatening clouds, however, many Mafia were still loading ships, operating stalls, or wandering aimlessly, as if they were used to this kind of weather. The girl glanced at them, worried. Sure, she was used to extreme weather conditions, too, but _she_ didn’t willingly put herself in the middle of them! Or, at least, not usually.

The child pulled her cape closer, both to try to warm herself, and because the thing was blowing all over the place and pulling _her_ with it. She decided the best course of action would be to find cover, then use use her hat’s ability. Speaking of which, how was _that_ accessory staying snugly on her head? Not that she wasn’t grateful, but it was pretty dang windy.

Another gust of wind sent her stumbling back, and after regaining her balance, the girl ran. She wasn’t even really looking where she was going, and slipped a whole bunch, but at this point she didn’t care.

It seemed no matter where she went, wind pelted her small figure. All doors were tightly locked, everything that wasn’t bolted down blew away (including the inhabitants), and the trees only bent with the wind, providing no shield against it. She briefly wondered if she’d gotten herself caught in a _hurricane_ , but decided that if she had, she’d be significantly more dead and the Mafia would be significantly more panicked.

The distraction was, in the most literal sense possible, her downfall. The child’s foot caught on a large cobblestone, causing her body to lurch forward while her boot stayed stuck behind her. She cried out, flailing wildly in an attempt to catch herself. Her efforts delayed the dive for a whopping _two_ seconds! ...Before her face plummeted towards the unforgiving ground.

Moments before impact, a gloved hand shot out from the doorway behind her, seizing the girl by her collar and yanking her inside.

Hat Kid fell on her tush, which was subjectively better than falling on her face, and groaned.

“You’re _welcome_ , by the way.” She squinted up at her hero, mouth curling into a smile when she realized who she was looking at.

Mustache Girl smirked down at the child, standing with her hands on her hips. “That coulda been a _real_ nasty fall!” Slowly, Hat Kid, pushed herself off of the ground, standing up and observing this new place. They were in a hallway, which looked considerably modern, compared to the exterior. It was mainly composed of polished wood floors and painted white walls. The simple architecture was broken up by a number of couches and rugs, not to mention multiple small, golden _chandeliers_ hanging from the ceiling.

She suddenly felt _extremely_ out of place, and _very much_ like an intruder.

“Come _on_ , we haven’t got any time to waste!” Mu grabbed her by the wrist, pulling the girl through some large glass doors in the middle of the hall. The two dashed through a large, cluttered room, although that was about all that Hat Kid could discern. The place was nearly pitch-black, and while Mu navigated through the dark with ease (in a way that made the child almost _certain_ her friend had broken into the building many times before), Hat Kid bumped into quite a few objects, feeling more and more guilty with each expensive-sounding crash.

Suddenly, they bolted into another room, this time through a plain wooden door. The girl felt herself being shoved into a chair, and recoiled slightly when the powerful lights blinked on.

Once her vision adjusted to the brightness, Hat Kid discovered they were in some sort of storage room, filled with odds and ends. Even odder was the room’s interior color— bright pink walls, speckled with stars. It starkly contrasted the very formal hallway at the entrance, so much so that it seemed a little tacky. Most of the stored goods were piled up on one side of the room, leaving the other half with only a plastic plant sitting in front of a window, which was covered by a tan shade. Actually, scratch that. It was in front of a poster meant to _imitate_ a closed window.

She had been seated behind a desk, covered with several unrelated objects which she assumed had been chosen from the stored goods at random. She started to investigate one, but Mustache Girl interrupted her, shouting from somewhere in the back.

“Are you ready to take down some Mafia!? Let’s do it, I’m psyched!”

Her friend loudly wheeled a chalkboard into the space next to the “window”, the words ‘Master Plan’ scrawled at the top in large letters. Below it was a rather impressive drawing of an odd-looking building, as well as a sufficiently labeled depiction of Mu.

“Let’s go over the plan! All assaults need a good plan, or it’ll be a flop!” the girl stated confidently. Hm, that did make sense. Was _that_ what this was all about? Mustache Girl could have _at least_ provided a bit of explanation ahead of time!

Mu flipped the board to a drawing of her... choking a mafioso with his own tie, killing him. Hat Kid drew in a short breath, not expecting _that_. “First, we strangle them! Choke ‘em and watch ‘em _beg for mercy_! That’ll show them!” The girl simply stared at her friend. She’d known of her hatred of the Mafia, sure, but this was maybe a little _too_ far. And the excitement in her voice as she said the words... that couldn’t be good. Hat Kid shook her head slowly, but Mu ignored her. “No, wait, strangling is too kind...”

She spun the blackboard again, this time revealing an illustration of Mu stomping on a bloody Mafia, next to a gross-looking pot. “We smash them together into mush, and put their remains in a jar!” What?! That was _worse_! “Then we sell the jar for pocket money! That’ll be the ultimate salt in the wound!” What? Why would they put salt in the Mafia’s wounds? Especially if the Mafia were mush! Besides, who on Earth would _buy_ a jar of slimy mafioso-puree?

...actually, she didn’t want to know.

“....*ahem* But first, we have to make it through their **Mafia HQ**.”

Another flip, and mean-looking man appeared, sitting on some sort of throne. According to Mu’s drawing, he was bad, dumb, and probably smelled. How were so many images on a two-sided chalkboard, anyways?

“Once we find and dethrone the **Mafia Boss** , the rest will follow. Then our mush and jar party will be no problem!” Hat Kid attempted to smile encouragingly, but it turned into more of a grimace. She was sure there was a good reason her friend hated the Mafia so dearly. There had to be! So she’d respect Mu’s plan. Just, maybe, not _participate_ in the gruesome part of it, heheh...

She refocused as Mu spun the board, this time revealing a picture of Hat Kid herself! Although, she looked sad, for some reason.

“We’ve gotta get you geared up! Your hat is... basic, and we don’t do basic in this gang!” Hat Kid gasped, genuinely offended. _**EXCUSE** ME?!, _she fumed internally, forcing herself to hold her tongue. _My hat is **perfectly amazing** , thank you very much!!!_

Mustache girl didn’t notice the anger she’d sparked in her ‘student’, too wrapped up in her lesson. “ **Yarn** can be found around Mafia Town and used to stitch new hats if you’re crafty. I’ve collected one for you!” She dug her hand into a pocket, and tossed a shiny ball of yarn towards Hat Kid. The child glared back for a moment, before grabbing the yarn and snapping it into safekeeping. _Fine_ , she’d forgive the offense to her hat. For now.

“You need more yarn for some hats than others. I guess being creative isn’t free, huh? So keep an eye out for yarn!” She shoved the blackboard towards the other side of the room, resulting in a loud crash and the smaller clatters of other objects consequently falling. Mu ignored the mess she had likely just created. “Now you’re a killing machine! Let’s go get them!!”

Mustache Girl, per usual, dashed out of the building before Hat Kid could get a word in edgewise (if mother had _allowed_ herto, that is), leaving the child alone in the pink room. Suddenly left in uncomfortable silence, she soon followed, though not without causing more accidental property damage. She silently apologized to whoever owned said property, and hurriedly exited.

The wind had, thankfully, died down, but it seemed to her that everything had become even darker than before. There was _no way_ it was already night! Perhaps it was just her eyes still readjusting from the dark place she’d just been in? Regardless, it was getting pretty cold, all things considered, so she decided to get on with whatever her objective was. Mustache Girl hadn’t ever clearly stated _how_ to reach the Mafia HQ, after all. Most of the plan actually seemed to have been about the _aftermath_ of their success. No matter! She was good at improvising. The HQ was all the way at the apex of the island, right?

The girl began running, looking left and right in an effort to spot ways up. The island’s layout was not exactly the most... user friendly. She spotted a ladder to her right, and began to turn towards it when— _bonk_! She crashed into something, and fell back, rubbing her forehead. Oops.

“ _Perhaps you should look where you’re going, hm?_ ” Her head snapped up, instantly recognizing the voice. The Badge Seller! She gave them a wide smile, waving vigorously. They chuckled.

“ _I hear you’ve given that ‘Barrel Gang’ a piece of your mind. Impressive, especially for a child._ ” She grinned, momentarily getting a certain glint in her eyes, and nodded.

The Seller looked towards the sky, and Hat Kid did the same. Gloomy clouds clustered together over the island, stretching on as far as she could see and thick enough to completely block out any sunlight. The Seller turned their attention back to the child, tapping a finger to their chin as they scanned her clothing. “ _You don’t watch the weather forecast, I take it._ ” She opened her mouth to ask what a ‘four-cast’ was, but stopped herself. Mother had told her not to, and she knew she couldn’t hide _anything_ from _her_. Which really sucked, she pouted, because it was just so _inconvenient_.

The Badge Seller, in the meantime, had raised their staff, summoning a shiny yellow raincoat from their bag. Buttons ran down the middle which matched the jacket’s purple accents. Strangely enough, it matched the color scheme of her hat!

“ _I don’t normally carry this type of item in my shop, but I can make an exception for you, child. You only have one outfit, correct?_ ” They turned aside for a moment, muttering to themself. “ _Honestly,_ one _outfit? That woman is insufferable...”_

They pounded their cane on the ground, causing the coat to fly towards Hat Kid and land neatly in her outstretched palms. “ _I’ll give you this one on the house, seeing as you were kind enough to purchase from me yesterday._ ” She beamed up at them, unable to restrain a small “Thank you!”, and quickly started unbuttoning the thing. “ _It isn’t just any coat— this one is especially made for keeping off precipitation. I have a feeling you will find it quite useful very soon...”_ She now had one arm in a sleeve, and grabbed at the air a bit until she found the other armhole. The girl had no idea what precipitations were, but if the Badge Seller said it would come in handy then who was she to doubt them? Besides, no way was she turning down a free accessory.

“ _Well, I’ve some business matters to attend to. I wish you the best of luck, young one.”_ She looked up to wave goodbye, but the Seller had already disappeared, leaving a cloud of pixels in their wake. She waved a hand through the strange particles in awe, but just as soon as they’d appeared the squares were gone.

She looked around for the Badge Seller, tempted to call their name, but ultimately decided against it. She’d see them later, for sure, and she didn’t want to keep Mu waiting!

The girl sped off, beneath the layer of ever-darkening clouds. Thunder cracked in the distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “She came from outer space” was originally going to be in this chapter, but it got too long. Guess I’ll have to group it with the boss battle.
> 
> Also I have a ton of doodles that I can’t really show here, so I’m _kind of_ considering making an art/ask blog involving this AU and another one? Would anyone find that interesting?
> 
> Anyways, moving on...
> 
> I’m not going to explain the dream sequence, but I think that you should be able to interpret at least part of it on your own.
> 
> Sorry for making her cry so much but it gets better I swear—
> 
> Hat Kid is used to eating bland, mushy food, mostly because the little edible food in Vanessa’s house has been frozen for years.
> 
> If HK’s summary of her adventure confused you, then don’t worry— that’s kind of the point.
> 
> This is slowly turning more and more into a Tangled AU with every chapter, whoops 😅
> 
> Since HK does not own a spaceship, and the manor can’t be used as a substitute for obvious reasons, I have to use other places instead. Sooo Mu and HK broke into a building to discuss their plan. It may or may not come up again later...
> 
> I don’t think that you can actually find the Badge Seller in “She Came from Outer Space”, but you know what this is my story I’ll do what I want.
> 
> That’s all for now! Ciao!


	12. Muddy Puddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hat Kid does not love jumping up and down in muddy puddles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting last week. I was on vacation, plus I’ve been experiencing a bit of writer’s block. I’ll try to get back on schedule!

The rain came down heavy and hard. Thick droplets of water pelted the little town below, coating it in a sleek layer of the clear liquid. Birds huddled together beneath eaves and tables to stay out of the cold, and the few unfortunate ones left alone in the rain skidded to and fro in an attempt to find cover. Doors were locked tightly, stores closed up— in fact, it seemed that the only inhabitants not affected were the Mafia, who continued to monotonously load crates or roam aimlessly.

It had come so suddenly that she hadn’t had time to take cover. A droplet hit her on the nose, followed by another, and another, until she found herself quite suddenly surrounded by falling water. Noticing some people running into their homes with umbrellas trustily overhead, the girl hastily pulled out her own parasol and tried to shield herself from the rain. After a bit of fumbling, she found a button which extended and opened the umbrella, but it was already too late. Even a few seconds of exposure had completely drenched her, except for the areas her new coat covered up. Fortunately, the jacket seemed to be made of some kind of water-resistant substance, and the rain simply slid off! She took a mental note to thank the Badge Seller later.

The child reached up and tapped her hat. Miraculously, it was already almost _completely_ dry, despite the waterlogged state of her other clothes! She shrugged it off. _Hey, hat,_ she thought, _can you help me out? I need to find the nearest Time Piece._ Immediately, she was spun to face some high-up buildings. “So there _are_ some more Time Pieces on the island!” she cheered under her breath. Great! ~~An excuse to procrastinate~~ This would help her progress in her mission!

The child headed up in the most direct path possible, which wasn’t very easy, but she figured that, if needed, she could simply ask her hat to show her her ‘goal’ once again. Fortunately, most of the town’s numerous platforms were connected by ladders, so it wasn’t long before she reached her destination. The girl grabbed hold of the final ladder, anticipation and impatience fueling her to speed up. She pulled herself to the top, prepared to see a Time Piece, when—

_Splat!_ The girl slipped, and landed face-first in a puddle of mud. She groaned.

Hat Kid had noticed the puddles. Of course she had! Mother was _very_ strict about keeping clean, and had trained the girl to avoid falling whenever possible, _especially_ onto dirt. Not to mention that no one would take you seriously if they saw you _trip_. And so far, she’d done a great job of avoiding the mud! She had jumped over every inconveniently-placed pile of muck in her way. This one was just _cheating_. Putting a puddle right at the top of the ladder was _no fair_! How was she supposed to avoid _that_?

Obviously, mother wouldn’t want to hear it. She’d be furious all the same. Hat Kid pushed herself off of the ground, spat the mud out of her mouth, and huffed. Well, at least her new jacket had mostly protected her dress. Maybe she could wash the raincoat off in the ocean, since it was waterproof and all...

She stood up and hurriedly stepped away from the puddle, attempting to at _least_ brush the mud off of her face. It didn’t work, of course— her hands were muddy too, and any grime she wiped off of her face was simply replaced by more.

“What the... HUH?!”

The shout startled her, and the girl whipped around. Her eyes landed on a mafioso standing a few feet away, quaking in terror. Yet, interestingly enough, this guy wasn’t just another clone, and appeared to be much different from his comrades. Rather than the standard Mafia ensemble, the man wore swirly green glasses, a bright orange shirt, and a goofy peppermint-striped bow tie. She tilted her head. It was kind of sad how a mere change of clothes alone had caught her interest, but could you blame her? All the Mafia on this island wore the same thing! Honestly, had there been a sale on boring suits and aprons or something?

Apparently, he wasn’t finished screaming. “It’s... IT’S SLIMY SPACE ALIEN!” She frowned. Rude! She didn’t look _that_ odd, did she? “MAFIA SAW SPACESHIP! MAFIA KNEW ALL ALONG! MAFIA IS BEING INVADED BY ALIENS!” The child squinted up at the sky, but the overcast completely obscured any possible extraterrestrial vehicles. She’d have to check that one out later. It was more than likely he was mistaken, but hey! It couldn’t hurt if she decided to humor him, right? Plus, aliens sounded cool. Maybe they’d even want to be friends!

Suddenly, an otherworldly shimmer caught her eye. Glancing down, she realized the goon was clinging to... a Time Piece! Immediately, she took a step forward, holding out both hands and grabbing at the air.

Of course, this only scared him further. In a sudden burst of adrenaline, the mafioso screamed, leaping from the area the two stood on to a large, raised platform made up of multiple wooden panels. WHAT? How?! That gap had to be _at least_ , what, 15 feet? All the other Mafia could hardly even _jump_!

The girl looked down at her muddy hands. Well, it was certainly too late to clean herself off now. And she guessed she _did_ look a little scary with all that mud on her. Why not have a little fun?

**———————————————————————————**

She stood over the cowering goon, an otherworldly light shining from her eyes. He had proven to be surprisingly agile, jumping from structure to structure in his terror. Heck, he’d even gone as far as to race across a _banner_ , and even some wooden planks being held up by hot air balloons for some reason? Looking down as she ran had produced a _spectacular_ view. In fact, she was almost certain that they’d reached the highest spot on the island! Excluding the Mafia HQ, of course.

Now, however, there was nowhere left to run. Besides, even if there _had_ been, both parties were very much out of breath, and the chase wouldn’t have lasted much longer before one or the other gave out. The two remained eerily still for a moment, their panting and the patter of raindrops being the only things preventing an awkward silence.

Eventually, the mafioso regained enough energy to speak. “Leave Mafia alone, you monster!” he begged. She put a hand on her hip and used the other to point at the Time Piece. His gaze followed her finger to the object, and he held it out timidly. “Here, if Mafia give you **this** , will you go away?” She nodded, smiling at him with the hope that he wouldn’t try to run off again. It had been fun, sure, but she was tired, and all the grime she was covered in just made running around a pain.

Hesitantly, the goon placed the magical hourglass in her outstretched hand, and the girl quickly stored her prize in hammerspace. Woohoo! Only... what was it now, 36 left?

She moved to leave, but paused. This guy didn’t seem all that bad. He’d just been scared, right? And she didn’t want him to _dislike_ her— really, she’d taken the Time Piece for his own safety! It would have been super _duper_ dangerous for _everyone_ if he’d ever found out what the hourglasses were capable of! Not to mention he had already proven to be _far_ better friend material than literally every other mafioso she’d met so far. She’d prefer to leave him on good terms.

So she turned a little, gave a friendly wave, and sped off, leaving a very confused Mafia behind.

**———————————————————————————**

“Um... mom?”

Vanessa sighed, and put down the book she had been reading. She’d been _hoping_ for a few more hours of alone time, but it seemed the child had other plans. Perhaps it was for the best. The book she’d been reading had hardly been as informative about Time Pieces as she’d hoped, and the woman had gotten bored of it after only a few pages. She never _could_ understand what her prince found so enjoyable about literature. _Especially_ those _dreadful_ law books! Half of the words seemed like they were written in an alien tongue to her, regardless of how many times her love had explained them to her.

He’d tried _so_ hard to get her invested in literature... it was actually kind of cute how hard he tried~ But no matter what he said, she’d stubbornly refused to even give it a chance. A decision which she _almost_ regretted now— but not quite.

Ugh. She could feel another migraine coming on. She needed a good distraction.

“...what is it, Ne—”

The queen cut herself off with a shriek, headache forgotten. There stood her daughter, covered from head to toe in _filth_ and, to make matters worse, getting the stuff _all over the place_.

“ _Nessa! WHAT in the WORLD are you DOING?!_ ” The girl had expected her mother’s rage, but flinched anyway. “ **If you’re going to look like a _pig_ , then _at least_ don’t track _mud_ everywhere!**”

“S-sorry mother...”

“ **Haven’t I _taught_ you to keep yourself _clean_?**”

“Y-yes, but—! It— it was raining! And there was m-mud _everywhere_!” The girl hastily lifted her cape and reached into her pocket dimension. “A-and look! I got— I got some more yarn! A-and a Time Piece! ”

Vanessa grabbed the items out of her daughter’s filthy hands, hurriedly flicking the mud off of them. Once they were once again untainted, she paused, and stared at the hourglass for a few seconds. The shimmering artifact reflected the angry red glow in her eyes. She inhaled slowly. _Compose yourself_. The queen glanced back at the child. “ _I—_ I _suppose_ that you can’t help the weather...” The girl’s eyes lit up. “Now get out of those muddy clothes and take a bath.” She’d have to wash the dirt out of the things on the third floor. Now where had she put that clothes soap...?

She slowly made her way upstairs, pinching the dirty clothes between two fingers and holding them at an arms’ length. As soon as she reached the washroom, she threw them into a bin, gagging a little as she smothered the things in soap. Using the washing machine would have been preferable, especially for a job like this, but mud was caked on so thickly that the appliance would likely either be ineffective or break.

The queen scrubbed with all her might, glad that no servants or guards were here to see her humiliation. Then again, if they _had_ been here, she wouldn’t be doing such a thing in the first place, huh. Where _were_ they?

She stopped for a second. Actually— yes, where _were_ all of the guards? And— and her attendants! She vaguely remembered plotting for weeks on end just to get away from them, but now not another soul was to be found. How... how long had it been since—

Vanessa was cut off by a jolt of pain. She inhaled sharply, leaning over and clutching her head. Great. Another headache, and her “medicine” was all the way on the first floor. She’d just have to power through it.

She focused all of her attention on cleaning out the grime, trying in vain to ignore the ceaseless _agony_ shooting through her temples. The _worst_ thing about these headaches was that they were _hot_ , like flames eating away at her head and scorching her skin. She’d always hated the heat, and her distaste for the sensation had only grown once these horrid aches had began. Each one was worse than the last.

_Finally_ the clothes were clean, or at least clean enough to put in the washing machine, and she crammed them into the appliance. She managed to activate the machine before she rushed downstairs, knocking several objects over in the process. The queen didn’t care. All she wanted was _relief_ , something that was cold to combat the heat. She considered encasing herself in ice. But that wouldn’t work— she couldn’t use an external solution for an internal issue.

Vanessa yanked open the kitchen cupboards, wildly searching through rows of glass jars until she found her beloved vial. The mad queen emptied every last drop into her mouth, letting out a ragged sigh as the pain began to fade. She’d need to make more of the medicine, but that could wait until later. For now, she had work to do.

She grabbed something from the parlor and headed back upstairs, passing the third floor in favor of the attic. She deposited her new Time Piece, giving it a final once-over in case she had missed any specks of mud. Finding it clean, she returned to the staircase.

Back in the laundry room, the washing machine was done. Good. The queen transferred the clothes to the dryer, hesitating briefly when she picked up a rubber coat. Had the girl always owned this? She didn’t remember making anything out of rubber... oh well. She didn’t really care. Placing the coat into the dryer, she turned and sat down on a velvet armchair in the corner of the room. It was a bit out of place in this particular room, but she couldn’t _stand_ to sit in those hard wooden chairs, and thus inserted more comfortable seating wherever she could get get away with it. She pulled out the two magical yarns and got to work, finishing her creation just as the timer for the dryer went off.

Once the child had finished cleaning herself up and gotten dressed, Vanessa called her into the master bedroom. The queen sat in front of the vanity, holding something in each hand.

Perhaps if Hat Kid had been paying closer attention, she would’ve noticed the frost slowly creeping up each object.

“I managed to finish a couple of little ‘projects’ while you were out. Firstly, of course, is your umbrella.” Vanessa lifted the parasol in emphasis. Notably, the star design had been changed to a simple snowflake, and a few shards of ice jutted out of the ferrule. “I’ve taken the liberty of enchanting it, so that it will be more efficient as a weapon. It should deal more damage, now, and if the tip is touching an object for long enough, said item will freeze.” Hat Kid carefully retrieved her umbrella, looking it over in awe. Even just giving the tip a quick tap sent something akin to a mild shock through her body. She shivered. This thing could probably freeze a _person_ if she wasn't careful with it.

The queen moved her now-empty hand to join the other in holding her second project. She then, slightly impatiently, cleared her throat to regain the girl’s attention. “I have also managed to complete a second hat using those yarns you gave me. It’s... a shame about the color, but the amount of effort it would take to change the hue without removing the hat’s magical properties is simply not worth it.” The child gasped in delight, dropping her parasol in favor of the new headgear. The hat in question appeared to be a red visor, which, like its yarn predecessors, sported pearly white wings on each side. It didn’t seem like the kind of hat her mother would make _at all_ , but maybe the magic wouldn’t work if it was any other design?

Just holding the hat filled her with vigor, and she began to bounce up and down in an effort to spend all the unused energy. “Nessa, try not to ruin the floors please. Now then, place this hat inside of your topper in order to ‘bond’ them.” The child raised an eyebrow, but followed the instruction, sticking her hand and hat inside of... her hat. Hatception?

Amazingly enough, the visor dematerialized as soon as it entered! She stared into the top hat’s dark abyss, and grabbed at the empty space, astonished. “Don’t worry, you can swap to the visor the same way you can switch to your beanie,” the queen assured. She turned, glancing at an old clock on the wall. “It’s a little after noon. You’d best take advantage of what remains of the daylight. Is there anything else you need before you go?”

Not missing a beat, Hat Kid reequipped her hat, and eyed the kitchen.

**———————————————————————————**

Soon enough, the girl was back in the air, once again flying towards Mafia Town. The weather around her shifted from freezing snow to pouring rain in a matter of seconds, and she found herself once more on the docks. She exhaled shakily, pulling the hood of her raincoat up over her ice hat. Now where to...?

She started forward, but halted almost immediately, nearly slipping on something at her feet. The child hunched over and peered down. A _very_ soggy piece of paper was taped to the floor, something messily scrawled on it. The handwriting was barely legible, and it certainly didn’t help that the rain was causing the ink on the page to bleed, but she managed to decipher the note.

_Meet me at Mafia HQ. One of those ice thingies is over there ^ and it should take you to the cannon._

_— M_

Hat Kid followed the arrow to see that there was, indeed, an ice platform on the other side of the docks. What did ‘M’ (whom she assumed was Mu) mean by “cannon”, though? There was only one way to find out.

She double jumped, lunging forward to reach the opposite set of docks, and walked up to the sky blue panel (despite the sky not currently being blue). It looked rather slippery, water covering the surface of the shiny platform. Hopefully her ice form wouldn’t slide off.

The girl stepped on cautiously, and activated her hat. After a few moments, she was deposited onto a wooden platform next to a large, blue observatory. The same location, in fact, that the goofy Mafia guy had been standing! This time, however, he was absent. The only thing of any interest was, in fact, a large cannon, who’s lid was wide open and practically _begging_ her to jump in. She followed the prompting, only briefly worrying about how safe such an action would be. After all, the cannon’s muzzle seemed to have been blown clear off at some point, likely by the cannon itself. And she’d read somewhere that even shooting at people with an unloaded gun could be deadly. Surely this wasn’t much different?

By the time such a thought crossed her mind, there was no time to back out. Almost immediately, the lid fell, locking itself tightly. The cannon tilted backwards, aiming towards the sky. She began to panic, pounding the thick metal walls and shouting for someone, _anyone_ to get her out of the crazy thing.

But nobody came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So I ended up making that tumblr blog I mentioned? It’s not going to be prioritized over this story or anything, but if you want to see mostly crack and maybe a few drawings of scenes from the story, then consider checking it out?
> 
> https://children-of-subcon.tumblr.com/
> 
> You don’t need to if you don’t want to though, sorry I can’t help but feel like this is advertising of some sort—
> 
> Okay back to the chapter!
> 
> So, the dotted line dividers signify a time skip. I’m going to be skipping through a lot of the smaller chapters, simply because what is fun in gameplay is not always exciting in literature form. Even though this is one of my favorite chapters...
> 
> I figured that if Vanessa has a fridge, might as well give her a washing machine, right?
> 
> I know it’s a terrible idea to put rubber in dryers, but uh... let’s just say their technology is more advanced? Or we could always just resort to “maaaaaaagic~“.
> 
> The umbrella will be changed for the rest of the story, but hats will probably remain the same as in the game. Mostly.
> 
> Sorry for the shorter chapter! Hopefully I can make up for it with the next one. If you have any criticism or advice, please don’t hesitate to tell me! Bye ;)


	13. Breaking and Entering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid explores a new place and makes a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agh! No, I’m not dead. I’ve just been busy, and not very motivated... Unfortunately, I think I’m going to have to change the update schedule to every other week. Sorry!! Hopefully that will result in better chapters, though.
> 
> I have an awful tendency to write waaay more detail than is necessary, so if I’ve done that in this chapter I apologize in advance.

She’d grown used to flying through the air as a statue. Unfailing, unfeeling, unmoving. The thrill of travel had, by now, faded into an impatience to reach her destination.

Vision was tinted in her ice form. The vibrant world she was exploring became corrupted by shades of blue, as if it too had been frozen over. Which, might have been fascinating, had the girl not been raised entirely within a similar setting. For her, the aesthetic had _long_ passed its prime. Now, she saw in it only a reminder of home. Of mundane days, of lonely nights. And so, she looked forward to the end, to the colorful, _warm_ world she was heading to.

Soaring without her icy armor was an entirely different sensation.

Something **_hot_** engulfed her for the briefest second, the kind of heat that you don’t quite comprehend until a few moments later. She wasn’t given those few moments. All of a sudden she was moving, racing through the sky at unprecedented speeds.

When using her ice hat, weather was a distant sensation. It was something like feeling the heat of a fresh tray of cookies through an oven mitt. _Just_ disconnected enough that she could tune it out altogether, if she tried.

This was the polar opposite. She could feel _everything_. The surge of blazing air firing her skyward, the wind tugging at her cheeks as if trying to pull her back down, cold water droplets bombarding her and streaming down her face. Rather than unwillingly performing a series of aerial somersaults, she traveled up in a grandiose arch— giving her quite an impressive view of the Mafia HQ.

The place was _huge_ , covering the majority of the area. Its front wall was hidden entirely by a facade of what she could only _assume_ were various kinds of sea creatures, accompanied by a pair of trees and two friendly-looking, beaming Mafia. She gave them an unimpressed once-over. Well if _that_ wasn’t false advertising, she didn’t know _what_ was! She was near certain that their default expression was a scowl.

Just above the HQ’s double doors sat a red sign, bordered on all sides by bright light bulbs. So bright, in fact, that she couldn’t actually make out what was written on the sign. She squinted and looked away. The rain had made everything so dim that the intensity of the lights _hurt_.  


Hat Kid shifted her focus to the fast-approaching ground, and managed a relatively smooth landing, given the circumstances. She breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed the cannon _was_ a (relatively) safe way to get up here, after all! Her solace, however, was short lived.

“You took your time! Help me out here!” Her face split into a grin. Mustache Girl! It seemed that the cannon _had_ been the correct way up, after all! ...wait, how long had Mu been waiting there? Had her friend been stuck, twiddling her thumbs, while Hat Kid had chased that goofy guy around and gone back home? The child began to feel a little guilty. She should have come here first thing, so Mu wouldn’t have had to wait on that overhang for an hour... why _was_ she standing up there, anyway?

“Um? Hey!” Mustache Girl snapped her fingers loudly, several times in succession. “Get these brutes off my case and we can go inside!” It was only now that Hat Kid noticed a small group of Mafia, circled around her friend. They seemed to be angrily shouting insults and hurling empty cans her way, of which the latter was dodging. Er, mostly.

Without thinking, Hat Kid ran up to the goons, raising two fingers to her mouth and producing a shrill whistle. In response, the men stopped assaulting Mu. Good! Unfortunately, they turned their attention to her, instead. Not so good. The child backed away slightly as the mafiosos closed in, clearly upset that she’d interrupted their harassment of their mustached foe. “Uh... no hard feelings?” she squeaked, forgetting her mother’s rule. The Mafia only growled in response, fists clenching tighter as they stalked towards the poor girl. Sure, she’d beaten like, six Mafia yesterday, but that was one at a time! She wasn’t sure she could handle _three_ by herself, considering that a goon could _easily_ take her by surprise while she was focused on another. Not to mention that she was practically cornered. “C-c’mon, we can— we can talk this out, r-right? Eheheh...”

They were getting closer now, seemingly advancing faster than she was retreating. She took another step back— and was met with air. The child flailed wildly as she craned her head back, gulping. She’d reached the edge of the island. Behind her was a _massive_ drop, _at least_ one-hundred feet, which ended in a sea of concrete and wood. You know, the best materials to land on when falling from high in the air.

She _barely_ managed to regain her footing, and turned back to the goons, who had slimy, wicked grins crawling up their ugly mugs. She was trapped, and they knew it. _They’re probably the kind of people who’d enjoy seeing a small child plummet to the rock-hard ground and splatter into a pile of mush_ , she thought grimly. But what could she do? If both combat and bailing were out of the question, what other options did she have?

“Oi! Hat Kid! You gonna let ‘em beat you up to a pulp or what? C’mon, don’t just stand there!” The girl’s head snapped towards Mu, who was still perched on the overhang. _Or, y’know, maybe you could get down and actually help me out_ , she internally snarked. Wait a minute... _Hat_ Kid! Of course! How could she forget her signature accessory? Surely _one_ of her hats could help her out here.

Hastily, she swapped through her hats. The top hat was always a classic, but ultimately useless in combat... ice beanie _did_ render her immune to most damage, but the mafiosos could just push her off... and the visor— actually, wait, what did this one do again?

She realized she’d forgotten to ask, and quite nearly facepalmed. How could she be so _stupid_?! The hat had one single, important purpose, and she had no idea what it was.

Well... surely it could do _something_ useful, right? Like, maybe clone her? Or make her stronger? She would have gone through more possibilities, but it was at that moment that the goons decided to strike.

She shrieked upon seeing the three of them lunging toward her at once, and pressed her eyes shut tight. _Come onnn, hat, do something_ , she begged. _Anything! I will take literally anything at this point._ In response, she got a prompting to run. What? She’d never been a very fast runner, and besides, where was there to run to? She opened her eyes, and the men were mere inches away from her face. Deciding that she wasn’t currently at liberty to question her hat, the child stifled a yelp and tried to run sideways. Yes, sideways. Like a crab. Could crabs run? Either way, she felt fairly idiotic for attempting such a feat, but there was no other direction to go!

Yet, somehow her awkward, hasty horizontal shuffling landed her a solid five feet away. She barely had time to process this as she found herself staring at the three Mafia, just as confused as her, flying over the island’s border and subsequently falling down, down to Mafia Town. Morbid curiosity almost made her want to look over the edge, to blow a satisfactory raspberry at the ill-fated trio, but she ultimately decided against it.

Her companion, on the other hand, did not. “Good job, kid!” called Mu, hopping down from her safe spot and running over. She leaned over, sneering down at the men, and made a whistling noise which dropped in pitch until she ended it with a pop, like some sort of cartoon. It was kind of gruesome, really, that the girl was treating these people’s deaths so lightly. Sure, they’d been huge jerks, but falling to your death sounded like a terrible way to die...

Hat Kid shook her head. It was too late to save them now, anyway, and she doubted they’d even be grateful. For now, she had this cool new hat to test out!

The girl hadn’t noticed before, most likely due to her intense panic drowning out everything else, but ever since she’d equipped the visor she’d been practically _bursting_ with energy. So much so, in fact, that she started jogging in place to try and get rid of it! Of course, that wasn’t enough. So she settled for running, and _wow_ she could run. She quickly figured out that that must have been her new hat’s ability. Cool! But what would she call it?

After going through several unsatisfactory options, she settled on “Sprint Hat”. Not the _best_ name ever, but hey, it wasn’t like anyone else would ever hear it, right? Satisfied, she began dashing around the island to test it out. “HEY! Where are you going, we haven’t got time to mess—“ Mustache Girl tried to call after her. Unfortunately, the child was far too engrossed in her experimenting to hear, and had rounded the corner before Mu even finished. The girl rolled her eyes, and opted to stomp onto a button a few feet away.

Meanwhile, Hat Kid was having _a blast_ testing out her slick headgear. She ran circles around the HQ, coming dangerously close to the rim several times, and eventually slowed to a stop around the back. She hunched over, panting. The hat certainly gave her energy, but it didn’t seem to allow her to run indefinitely. A shame, but ultimately better than having no speed boost at all. She could get around so much quicker now! The girl briefly wondered if she could outrun her mother...

“ _Ya done?! We don’t have all day!!_ ” shouted an annoyed Mustache Girl. Oh! Mu! She’d completely forgotten about her friend again... whoops. Sheepishly, Hat Kid began to run back towards the front of the building. That is, until she saw a treasure chest.

Now, it wasn’t an especially _large_ chest, but the girl couldn’t turn down _treasure_. Easily distracted as ever, she raced to the box and threw open the lid.

Inside lay a shiny golden coin, adorned with a single large star which sat on a circle of red. Fascinated, she reached down and grabbed the thing. She’d never seen anything of the sort, of course, but it looked interesting. Besides, it had been in a _treasure chest_! You don’t just put random junk in a treasure chest.

So, she pocketed the coin, and darted back to her rather unimpressed accomplice, to whom she mouthed a quick ‘sorry’. Mu returned only an irritated frown, jerking a finger toward the button opposite her. In response, Hat Kid gave a single nod, and hopped on.

No sooner had the secondary button been pressed, than the entrance’s protective gate slid up. Mu sighed in relief, and quickly sprang into action. “Let’s go, it’s showtime baby!” Victoriously, she ran inside, almost immediately followed by several clangs and shouts. It seemed Mustache Girl wasn’t wasting any time getting herself into trouble.

In contrast, Hat Kid hesitated. Now that she was alone, she felt the full weight of the massive structure towering over her. This place was dangerous, and it was somewhere she was _undoubtedly_ unwelcome. Well, to be fair, she hadn’t been particularly welcome down in the town, either, but this was the mafiosos’ _headquarters_. She was technically trespassing! Something was bound to go wrong.

Even so, it was too late to back out now. And this was the only way she’d ever collect all of the Time Pieces she needed! The girl shivered just at the _thought_ of mother’s reaction to her coming back empty-handed. What if her adventuring rights got taken away?! She _refused_ to be trapped in the house ever again.

With newfound determination, she took a deep breath and began walking, sneaking a final glance at the HQ’s goofy facade. Now that she was closer, the child realized the sign was actually legible! _**GO AWAY**_ , it read, with a smaller _(please)_ written below. She failed at suppressing a short snicker, and rebelliously headed in.

**———————————————————————————**

The interior of the building was, surprisingly, pretty nice! The main floor was covered by a dark red carpet, with another, lighter red carpet running down the middle. Each side had a row of oddly shaped tables, which had raised borders and a bunch of writing on the top for some reason? Maybe that was just part of the building’s design, or something. Though, if it _was_ , then why were there a bunch of normal tables just a few feet away? It seemed fairly unnecessary, to her, for them to be so inconsistent with their furniture.

The aforementioned “normal tables” were sat in an area that had a blue color scheme going for it, and was lower than the red sections. She couldn’t help but notice a handful of Pons littered around the space, and quickly added them to her metaphorical wallet.

Just as the final orb flew into her “pocket”, something cold and hard hit the back of her head. The girl reflexively reached her hands to the spot it had hit, and whipped around. The projectile hadn’t really _hurt_ , seeing as it had been fairly lightweight, but it still startled her. Immediately noticeable was the empty can at her feet. Huh? Where had that come from?

As if to answer her question, she found herself being bombarded with more tins, as if the first had brought along an army with it. Accompanying the cans came a slew of aggressive remarks, all coming from the Mafia seated at those weird tables. Wait, were they offended that she’d insulted their tables? Could they read her thoughts or something?

“Mafia take not kindly to intruders!”

“Go home with you!”

“Little girl shoo! This is Mafia base!”

Oh. They were just mad about her intruding. Well, that had been expected, but was decidedly less cool than mind-reading.

She opened her umbrella to serve as a temporary shield, and ran over towards the bar, which housed a couple of Mafia who appeared to be less bothered by her presence. Eventually, the other goons lost interest, and returned to... whatever they had been doing.

Hat Kid peeked out from her umbrella cautiously, before folding it up and storing it once more. She was about to go search for her friend, but a now-familiar gleam made her turn around. Walking through a big doorway and into darkness, was a mafioso, carrying a Time Piece! Big letters labeled his destination as a “Theatre”, albeit with a very lopsided ‘a’. A... theatre? Wasn’t this supposed to be the Mafia’s headquarters? Their base of operations? Mission control? Why would they need a _theatre_? More importantly, why had that guy taken it in there?

She frowned, confused, but decided to follow the man as quickly as possible to prevent her from losing him. Or, well, she tried to.

Another Mafia stood guard before the doorway, hunching slightly in a way that made him look even bigger than he already was. Normally, of course, this wouldn’t be a problem. However, when she attempted to sprint past him, visor still equipped, the child simply crashed into the man face-first, and fell backwards. She looked up, perplexed, but shrugged it off as her simply veering off course. She _was_ still getting used to this hat, after all.

Three minutes later, it was most definitely _not_ her veering off course. No matter what she did, this sentry slid— yes, _slid—_ right into her path, effectively thwarting any attempt to pass. Even jumping over him was impossible. The guy had lightning-quick reflexes, and she was simply yanked by the collar of her cape and booted away. So, she’d have to find another way in. Fine. She could be resourceful!

The girl looked around, a determined expression on her face. Hm... ah-ha! The rafters, of course! She doubted that anyone would be guarding any possible entrances up there.

She easily parkoured up to the top of the bar’s roof, and from there clambered onto one of the wooden beams sticking out of the walls. It was darker up there than she’d anticipated, but still possible to make out things. Such as the _hordes_ of rats scrambling past at such speeds that she was worried the creatures could knock her off! She’d have to be careful.

There didn’t appear to be much by way of _entrance_ , but there _was_ someone in the far corner, working busily at something beneath a dim light. This new person caught her interest, having never seen anyone like them, and so the girl cautiously made her way over.

As she got closer, Hat Kid saw that they were feline in nature, wearing a clean white chef’s uniform and moving around in a makeshift kitchen. A few buckets of sea creatures sat behind them.

As soon as she set foot on the cat’s wooden platform, their ear twitched. They turned swiftly, visibly relaxing upon seeing a little girl rather than a mafioso, and launched into an introduction.

“The Mafia are terrible at cooking! But fear not, **Cooking Cat** is here!” Huh, really? Given, she wasn’t really _surprised_ that the men were awful chefs, but wasn’t their entire _culture_ based around cooking? Plus, that one sandwich she’d bought hadn’t seemed half bad... “I prepare the actual dinner up here, and swap the food before anybody eats the Mafia’s cooking.” Woah, really? That seemed like a lot of work for a thankless (and wage-less) job! The girl stared up at the cat with no small amount of awe. “I’m fairly certain someone would die if they ate the Mafia-prepared food!” The feline laughed nervously. She averted her gaze for a few moments of awkward silence, before shaking her head and getting down from the crate she’d been standing on.

Hat Kid defensively backed up. Sure, this cat seemed nice, but what if that was a guise? She _was_ in the Mafia HQ, after all! This could be a trap!

Cooking Cat noticed the apprehension in the girl’s body language, and passively held up her paws. “Ah— no need to fear, kitten! I’m nothing like those brutes down there.” She smiled warmly, kneeling down. “So, what’s your name, hon? If you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay too.” Hat Kid was at a loss for words. She wanted to answer, but the words stuck in her throat. _A new friend,_ said her heart. _A trap_ , said her brain. She looked into the feline’s patient eyes, unsure. Well... surely just giving her her name couldn’t hurt?

“Hat Kid,” she heard herself near-whisper. She took a slow step back, still on edge.

“‘Hat Kid’, huh? That is a lovely name.” The girl stared for a second, before returning into the light of the kitchen. A small smile was timidly forming on her face. No one had ever complimented her name before... maybe ‘Cooking Cat’ wasn’t a bad guy, after all.

The feline seemed relieved. “So, hon, what brings you here? If ya don’t mind me askin’. It ain’t exactly the most... _child-friendly_ place on the planet, y’know...” Ah. Right. Hat Kid shuffled a bit, clasping her hands behind her back. She glanced down at the Theatre door.

“Um... I need to get in there,” came her quiet answer. “I... _lost_... something.” Cooking Cat followed her gaze, grimacing once her eyes landed on the doorway. Her fur bristled, like a jolt of electricity had been sent through her body.

“In _there_? That’s not— I wouldn’t recommend that, hon.” The girl turned back to CC, silently pleading. The cat bit her lip. “...I s’pose you’ll find a way in whether I help ya or not. You seem to be the determined type,” she sighed, defeated. Cooking Cat pointed to the bar on the opposite side of the room. “That door, there. It leads to the kitchen. I think you might be able to find some way to... get to where you wanna go. Though, I can’t help ya with any specifics, seein’ as I’ve never been in there for longer than a minute, myself. That place smells worse than durian!”

Hat Kid didn’t know what a ‘durian’ was, but nonetheless got the gist of what Cooking Cat was saying. She nodded, and started to leave, squeaking a quick “Thank you!”.

“You be careful, now, sugar. Good luck!” The feline watched the child drop out of the rafters, still biting her lip.

News traveled like wildfire in Mafia Town. The Mafia never had much to talk about, so the second they got ahold of something even _remotely_ interesting you’d best bet the entire island would know about it in a matter minutes. This did not exclude the “casino”, and so Cooking Cat found herself wonderfully well-informed as to the affairs of the town, even from miles above.

And of course, the strange little hatted girl who went around collecting hourglasses and beating up mafiosos had been a story that travelled even quicker than usual, if that were possible. It was said she’d arrived around the same time that hundreds of hourglasses had rained from the heavens. Some said she‘d rained from the heavens, too.

CC hadn’t quite believed such stories, at first. They sounded an awful lot like some sort of prank dreamt up by that mustached girl. But once she’d caught a glimpse of a different young girl, wearing a hat and running around at _superhuman_ speeds, she’d been convinced.

This was the primary reason she’d allowed the girl to face the Mafia Boss at all. She still couldn’t help but worry, but if the rumors were true, the child could handle herself just fine.

CC rubbed her forehead, finally returning to her cooking. Regardless of how hard she tried to reassure herself, the cat only continued to fret. If this kept up, she wouldn’t be able to focus on her work at all...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll be altering a lot of events, to try and make them more interesting to read. Please do let me know if you like or dislike the changes, though!
> 
> Yes, Cooking Cat is going to be a girl in this one. For one, I’m fairly certain they’re female in canon, but also HK needs a better mother figure :’)
> 
> A durian is a fruit who’s smell has been compared to garbage and rotting flesh.
> 
> I tried to give CC dialogue that’s in character, but I’m not sure whether I succeeded or not :/
> 
> Okay! That’s it for this chapter! Hopefully I’ll manage to finish the next one on time...


	14. Showtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Too much noise.

The kitchen, as promised, was positively _awful_. It was apparent that no one had bothered to clean the place in _years_ , judging by the gunk that coated every inch of it. Gross little bugs writhed and wriggled over the stained tile floor, and dishes were piled up to the ceiling.

Worst of all, however, was the stench. She couldn’t find the right words to describe it. The odor hung heavy in the air, sticky and suffocating. Like the mist her mother generated when angry, almost— except this fog made her insides want to leave her body. The stench had slammed into her like a cannonball as soon as she’d opened the door, and her hands immediately flew to her nose. What _was_ that?! Had something died in here? It reeked so badly that the air genuinely _stung her eyes_. The girl squinted and desperately searched for a door so she could _get out_ as quickly as humanly possible. Thankfully, she spotted Mu standing next to one, and stumbled over.

“Smells almost as bad as the Mafia themselves in here, huh?” Hat Kid cringed, nodding. “Yeah, I think they lost a fish in here a while ago or something, so it was just left to rot... anyway. See this door here?” She pointed behind her with her thumb. “It should lead you to the ‘throne room’. Corny, I know. Problem is...” Mustache Girl reached over and shook the large lock covering the door. “...it’s locked. So _your_ job is to find the key! It can’t be _that_ well hidden, I’m sure. Got it?”

Hat Kid briefly unplugged her nose, raising an eyebrow. “No help?”

“Who was the one that wasted valuable time sprinting circles around the HQ?”

“...right.”

Grumbling quietly, Hat Kid edged her way past the Mafia on kitchen duty, and burst back into the main room, gulping down the comparatively clean air gratefully. Okay, then... where would a key be?

She scanned the room, her eye catching a door on the other side, and headed towards it. “ _Hold on a moment, young one_.” The child gasped. Badge Seller! The merchant was posted near the theatre entrance. Had they always been there?

The girl turned excitedly, but her smile fell when her friend began speaking. “ _Those hourglasses... they are far more dangerous than you realize. To be perfectly honest, I believe that it would be best for you to just give up your search now, before it is too late..._ ” What? Why were they telling her this? It was none of _their_ business what she did. How dangerous could a few hourglasses be, anyways? Hat Kid frowned and looked away, feeling a bit betrayed. She’d thought _they,_ of all people, would support her! Maybe she’d been wrong.

“... _however. You aren’t going to give up. I know, I knew before I even asked you to. You are the type that stays determined in every situation, and sees things through to the end._ ” Well now she was just confused. What were they even talking about? And how did they know all that stuff about her? Was it... true? _“I’m sorry. Just... I have a bad feeling, is all._ ” Ohh! So they were _worried_ about her! It was a nice gesture, but they didn’t need to go as far as suggesting she _fail_ her mission. Hat Kid made a face that she hoped was reassuring.

The Seller stood in silence for a moment, before speaking again. “ _Let’s move on. How are you liking that badge?_ ” She grinned, and gave them a double thumbs up. “ _Good, good. Not everything I sell is of value, you know. I also sell terrible **Badges**... and yet people buy them anyway_.”

The girl giggled, briefly contemplating buying one of the “terrible badges” just for the heck of it. Actually, though, she _did_ want to buy another badge, so she pointed to the one on her hat and stared at the Seller expectantly.

“ _Ah... you want to buy another? You’ve gathered many more Pons since we last met, I presume. Well, fortunately I have restocked! Take a peek._ ” They pounded their staff down, just as before, and the badges flew out. That trick would _never_ get old.

Hat Kid stepped closer, eager to see what badges were available today. There was the propeller one again, a red one with some stars printed on it, and— wait, huh? She glanced at the Badge Seller, confused, as she motioned towards the final badge, or rather, object. It certainly wasn’t a badge!

“ _Ah, my apologies. I didn’t provide sufficient explanation, last time... well, as you know, my badges are enchanted to give you special abilities! However, as a sort of trade-off, only one can be equipped at a time. If you equip multiple, their magic fields will interfere with each other’s abilities—_ “ They cut themself off, noticing the confusion spreading across the girl’s face. “ _Er— in layman’s terms, they don’t work._ However _, I have created a solution—_ **Badge Pins** _! To put it simply, they allow you to equip one more Badge._ ”

Ohhhh. Cool! She wanted in on this sweet deal! And while she was at it, she’d buy that badge she couldn’t afford last time, too. After another moment of consideration, the child pointed to the two items and gave a definitive nod. “ _The **Badge Pin** and **Hover Badge**? Excellent choices. Is 150 Pons alright with you?_” She nodded ‘yes’ once again, and beamed as she watched the green orbs soar overhead. One satisfying snap of a brand-new badge later, and she was good to go! Of course, the girl didn’t forget to clap. “ _You’re too kind, young one,_ ” they laughed. “ _Now, then, you have one Mafia Boss to beat up, correct? Don’t let me delay you. Come again soon!_ ”

She smiled in return, starting in the direction of that door, but stopped. Oh no! She nearly forgot! Swiftly, the child whipped around, immediately catching the attention of the Badge Seller. She held out an arm, pointing at her raincoat’s sleeve with the other, and chirped a quick “Thank you!” They chuckled, waving at her as she disappeared into the key room. And just like that, they glitched, and were gone.

**____________________________________________**

The Mafia Boss stared down at his hand. His reflection stared back.

Clutched in the man’s meaty palm was none other than one of the infamous _Time Pieces_ , a relic of great value and _infinite_ power. The thing shone with an ethereal glow, the pure white sand encased within its glossy surface sparkling like molecular sequins. He hadn’t believed it when his men reported that magical hourglasses were raining from the sky. He _still_ didn’t quite believe it.

He’d been very young when the war began. Only a little older than a toddler. But it had orphaned him, and so he’d been forced to grow up far too quickly. The streets were empty and unforgiving, and he, as a resident of them, had emulated. He’d found a home with the Mafia. Through hard work and dedication, he’d risen the ranks, and when he’d been given the chance to found his own town and rule it— well, there were no further questions asked.

Through all of this, the man had forgotten the war. Forgotten what it was really about, why it even happened, how it started. But he’d never forgotten one thing, and that was the fact that Time Pieces had the power to reform the entire world.

Obviously, one couldn’t do much on its own— hence why he was still stuck here, in a hallway he’d once thought grand. Now, he wished for much, much more. The hourglass had filled his head with all sorts of images, of palaces and kingdoms and _entire planets_ he could haveto himself. If he could just get ahold of all the rest of the fallen Time Pieces, he would rule _the universe_.

Fortunately for him, he doubted any of the dimwits who had managed to get ahold of an hourglass were old enough to know their true power, which would make acquiring more of the things _easy_. Even if they _did_ know, there was no way any of them had command over such a formidable band of followers as he did, right? Well... maybe some of the other “bosses”... actually, most likely _all_ of them... still! Mafia were much more adaptable than them! He’d already sent several teams out to collect Time Pieces, anyways, so surely he had an advantage.

The man smirked to himself as he continued to stare into the glass, watching his reflection warp into one of a king, surrounded by Time Pieces and all _sorts_ of other luxuries. He could feel the relic’s power seeping into him, slowly corrupting his mind...

_Thunk_. It was faint, but the unwanted sound in the completely silent room made him perk right up. He narrowed his eyes. _The end of the hallway_. That was where it had come from. Something— some _one_ was back there. He could feel it. And they wanted the— they wanted **_his_** Time Piece. Scowling, the man threw his prize into the air, letting it hover above his throne. He knew _exactly_ who had made the noise.

Around the same time the Time Pieces had begun to fall, _she_ had showed up. A young girl, not even old enough to be in her _teens_ , who had beaten up several of his mafiosos and stolen _three too many_ of his Time Pieces. He didn’t know whether she actually knew what they could do, and if so, _how_ , but frankly, he didn’t care. She was a threat to his perfect paradise, an enemy to his vision for the new world he planned to build, and she needed to be _stopped_. Even if he had to **kill her himself.**

**____________________________________________** **  
**

Hat Kid was, rather inelegantly, sprawled atop a pile of riches. She’d landed face first, because of course she had, and rolled straight into one of the many mounds littering the floor. She tried to get up. Unfortunately, this was a nearly impossible task. No matter _where_ she placed her hands, they sank into the mass of valuables, and caused large quantities to completely slide off of the pile altogether.

After an embarrassing amount of flailing, she managed to get up, and turned to inspect her surroundings. Heaps upon heaps of coins and gems littered the area. That was an... interesting choice of decor.

The room she was in turned out to be an offshoot from a long hallway, both of which were plated in gold and accented by rows of towering red velvet curtains. Statues of similar caliber stood between the drapes, the nearest ones reflecting a contorted version of her face. Ugh. The royal golds and scarlets were heaped onto this place so thickly that she felt like choking.

Squinting, the girl shifted her attention to the end of the long corridor. There sat the Mafia Boss in all his lackluster glory— draped lazily over a big chair meant to be his throne. She guessed the setup was meant to be impressive, and it certainly was luxurious. _Too_ luxurious. But really, the room was more sickening than anything, and the Mafia Boss just blended in with everything else. In fact, the one thing that _did_ stand out was the white shimmer of a Time Piece, which was fine by her. The question was how to actually _get_ it. She couldn’t just walk up and take it, obviously. The object was hovering over the Boss’s head, _juuust_ out of reach for someone of her stature. He didn’t look like the type to peacefully hand it over, either, and his eyes were locked onto her so sharply that a stealth mission was out of the question.

Her best bet, she decided, would be to play along to whatever game he’d use to keep it from her. That is, assuming he wasn’t smart enough to deny her any chance to get it at all. Yikes. She hoped not! Hat Kid pushed the idea out of her mind, advancing carefully down the long hall.

“So... it is you!” bellowed the Mafia Boss, glaring at the small girl. She was even _smaller_ than he’d expected. Ha! How had she even managed to get this far? He’d known his men were incompetent, but this was just embarrassing.

“Ever since you landed in Mafia Town, it’s been raining with **Time Pieces** ,” he continued. “You must be very lost, kid with the hat. I haven’t seen **Time Pieces** for over a hundred years.” To that, Hat Kid tilted her head. Over a hundred _years_?! How old _was_ this guy?! And... how had he seen them before? Her mother had said— well, no, the girl had actually just assumed that the relics had never before been seen on Earth or something, but then how would _mother_ have known about them..?

“ **Hey**! Pay attention!!!” interrupted the Boss. Her head shot back up. “That’s better. Now, as I was saying, you’re standing before the most powerful man you will ever witness!” She doubted that. “Everything you’ve ever owned belongs to me now.” Good thing she didn’t own much! Not that she was ever going let this dummy have any of her stuff.

“That includes this **hourglass piece**. If you want it, we’ll have to settle it in true Mafia style!”

The lights powered off as soon as he finished speaking. The timing was suspiciously perfect, but Hat Kid was too busy freaking out to notice. _What if this is a power outage?!_ , she panicked, grabbing the brim of her hat just to make sure it didn’t disappear. The girl was used to power outages, of course— there had been _more_ than enough back home— but she was in a new place, of which she _didn’t_ know the ins and outs like the back of her hand. What was worse, she could hear all _sorts_ of weird noises around her. What was going on?!

The blackout only lasted a second or two. Before she knew what was happening, the lights flickered back to life, and she found herself standing on a large stage. Most of it was covered by cardboard scenery, leaving only the front strip for the girl to actually move around on. Rock music blared in her ears, the overhead lights shone directly in her eyes, and _hundreds_ of Mafia spectators had been crammed into a deep auditorium in front of the stage, shouting insults over all the noise. This was— huh..?

Hat Kid started shaking. She’d expected a boss fight, yes, but this was _too much_. So many eyes focused on _her_ , people yelling and screaming so loudly she couldn’t hear her own thoughts, and it was _too much, too many, she couldn’t focus or think or breathe—_

The Mafia Boss smirked at the cowering figure opposite him. This would be _easy_.

“Lights! Action! It is... **showtime**!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arghh! I’m so bad at following schedules... anyway! I meant for this to be the boss battle chapter, I really did. I can’t wait to get out of Mafia Town, because that’s when the story really takes off!
> 
> But I need more time to get it juuust right, and I didn’t want to keep you guys waiting any longer. So, while this chapter is bit more on the shorter side, I will try to get this arc’s finale out this week.
> 
> I also think I’ll cut more stuff out and time skip more often, simply because I’m really scared of boring people :’) And, to mix things up a bit, I’ll give a little perspective from each boss before their boss fight!
> 
> I mixed in some of the Mafia Boss’s original dialogue with his updated speech, because I find the implications of the first quite interesting.
> 
> I figure the power in Vanessa’s Manor would be fairly iffy, considering the frequent blizzards and all that.
> 
> That’s about it for now! See you next time!


	15. Down With the Mafiaaa!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hat Kid is both incredibly lucky, and terribly unfortunate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh jeez, I’m so so sorry. I honestly didn’t realize how long it had been, time just seems to be flying by so fast...
> 
> This is a fairly long chapter, though, so maybe that will make up for it? I’ll try not to let myself lose track of time again -_-“

Cooking Cat hummed to herself as she absentmindedly diced a carrot. It, admittedly, wasn’t a good idea to not pay attention while handling a knife, but the action was so routine to the chef that she didn’t think twice about her less-than-exemplary actions.

Instead, the feline found herself lost in thought, unable to take her mind off of that girl. Hat Kid, she’d called herself. It wasn’t the name she found strange; most people on this planet preferred titles or nicknames, including her, and so she was in no place to judge. If that was what the child wished to be known as, so be it. No, the thing that puzzled her was how this little girl, who couldn’t _possibly_ even be a _teenager_ yet, was so bizarrely powerful. And even more so, that the cat had never so much as _heard_ of her until the day before!

Even in the most remote areas, news from across the world always managed to worm its way through. How, then, had this prodigy escaped her radar? She could account for the story being new to Mafia Town as a fluke, sure. The Mafia didn’t seem particularly interested in this kind of thing, anyway, not unless it was an immediate threat to them. But CC wasn’t _just_ a resident of Mafia Town. She hosted her own cooking show, for goodness’ sake! She was exceptionally well travelled, priding herself in having visited every major area. Nothing _ever_ got past the sensitive ears of metro cats, and the nomads of Alpine Skyline clung to every thread of gossip they could get ahold of. Therefore, the girl _couldn’t_ have shown any unusual talent previously. It didn’t make sense for her to have hidden these abilities, only to suddenly start using them willy-nilly out of nowhere. She didn’t even seem to notice that her strength was out of the ordinary! So how could this child have managed to stay completely off the grid for her entire life?

The only option scared the feline a bit, honestly. Out of every region, the only kingdom which had remained entirely isolated for _centuries_ was... Subcon. The few rumors that were told of it stated that some terrible tragedy had befallen the kingdom, long ago. Some versions said it was the land’s seclusion which caused the nation to fall. Others claimed the infamous soul-stealing Snatcher was at fault. Regardless, it was now comprised mainly of dead forest, and was home to some of, if not THE most dangerous creatures on the planet.

Had Hat Kid come from... there? If so, how? More importantly, why? And why was she revealing herself to the world just now? Surely, it had something to do with those hourglasses...

At that moment, Cooking Cat suddenly became keenly aware of how quiet the room had become. Usually, her humming was drowned out by the mafiosos’ idle chatter and the area’s general background noise, but now it was the only noise she could hear. Whipping around, the feline’s worst fears were confirmed— the casino was empty.

Years of experience had taught her well, and the cat knew _exactly_ what was going on. Without hesitation, she hopped down from the rafters, thankful for her natural-born reflexes. Moments later, the lights went out, but she continued forward without so much as flinching. She knew she could see in the dark just fine, and there was no time for hesitation.

The Mafia _loved_ to host horrible “shows“ in their beloved Theatre. The goons found their entertainment in watching defenseless offenders being pummeled by their leader, much like the spectacles of the Roman Colosseum. They knew it, too— the stage was covered in crude props resembling greek architecture.

CC herself rarely attended. The only time she ever _had_ been was when she was new to town, and hadn’t known any better. She’d expected an actually play, not some poor soul getting beaten up! The cat had promised herself that she’d never watch another. But this... this was different. She _knew_ that this show was for that innocent little girl, there was no one else it could be! It didn’t matter if the child had shown great skill previously, she was still a _child_. And Cooking Cat refused to stand idly by while the Mafia Boss tried to kill a **kid**.

This would have to be the first promise she ever broke.

**…………………………………………………………………………………………**

Hat Kid’s head pounded from all of the commotion around her. She hated it, _hated_ how helpless and small she felt. The Mafia Boss’s mocking laughter certainly wasn’t helping. The girl considered giving up, right then and there. To just accept her death. It would be easier, in the long run, and likely less embarrassing than trying and, inevitably, failing. But chickening out would make her even _more_ of a failure, wouldn’t it? She’d be a disappointment, a disgrace. The girl desperately tried to blink away the tears threatening to spill, as she clung onto herself, slowly curling into a ball.

“ **Hat Kid!** ”

The shout brought her out of her thoughts. Somehow, among all the noise, that call stood out. She _knew_ that voice...

“ **Hat Kid, don’t give up!** ” Trembling, she uncurled herself just bit and searched for the voice. Even in the darkness, she found a splotch of orange in the sea of blue. It was... Cooking Cat? The feline, despite her short stature, stuck out like a sore thumb. Somehow, she managed to have both the loudest and softest voice among the crowd. Her support gave Hat Kid something to hold onto, just a touch of familiarity in this foreign setting. “ **I know you can do it, hon! Don’t let him get to you!** ”

The girl took a deep breath. Right. She could totally take this big meanie! Wiping her eyes, Hat Kid pulled out her umbrella and took on a fighting stance with newfound determination.

“ ** _SHUT UP!!!_** ” snarled the Mafia Boss, glaring at CC. How bothersome. Where had that cat even _come_ from, anyways? Whatever. It was more interesting to battle against an opponent who actually put up a fight. Grinning, the Boss whipped out his rolling pin, holding the object out in front of himself, and pulled it apart into two large cleavers. Time to get _serious_.

He had the decency to start off simple enough, at least. Or, rather, the ego to. Why waste his energy on a mere child, after all?

The attack, simple as it was, also happened to be quite well suited to their current “arena”. The Boss spun like some sort of lethal top, arms outstretched, with the intention of snagging the girl with his blades. The stage was _just_ wide enough for him not to accidentally bump into anything, as long as he made a beeline towards her— which was exactly what he was doing. Hat Kid frowned, but she wasn’t going to let herself panic and break down again. After all, big girls didn’t cry.

As calmly as she could, the girl stood her ground, eyes darting around the stage. Leaping off would surely bring upon her a swarm of mafiosos... the Mafia Boss was tilting in such a way that sliding underneath him was nigh impossible... so then, if not under, perhaps—

One could practically envision the lightbulb switching on above her head. Determined, Hat Kid waited until he was just _inches_ away, and, as the Mafia would put it, “jumped double in air”. He didn’t seem surprised at all, which was rather unfortunate and maybe just a _bit_ disappointing, but she ignored the thought. Likely anticipating that she’d have to land behind him, her foe made a sharp turn that really shouldn’t have been possible at his velocity. What he didn’t anticipate, however, was the child homing in on him from the air, and landing a solid _thwack_ onto his skull.

Thrown out of his attack, the Boss instinctively raised a hand to his head. What the _PECK_? How could an _umbrella_ wielded by a _child_ hurt so pecking much?!

...fine. Whatever. He probably should’ve expected her to be stronger than a normal child. In all his tenacity, the man had forgotten what had carried her across his island and landed her onto this very stage. Maybe he’d... take a different approach.

Taking a mighty leap across the stage, the Mafia Boss landed himself back in his original position. Being human, he was not as magically inclined as, perhaps, most others. He found it hard to control, and generally just preferred more substantial weapons. But... maybe he could work that to his advantage.

“SUPER CHARGE!”

He spun, finding that the easiest way to direct his attacks, as magical lightning struck him from the heavens. With each bolt came an electrical surge, barreling towards his opponent. A few shot into the audience, hard to control as always, but he didn’t really care if a few goons died. No, in the grand scheme of things, once he ruled the universe, **what would a couple of casualties matter**?

The charges really weren’t all that difficult to dodge. The Mafia Boss liked to put on a big show, with lots of lights and flashy colors, but the attacks were evenly spaced apart and fairly low to the ground. She only needed to jump once to get over them! It didn’t take many before he ran out of energy, head spinning dizzily. It was the perfect opportunity to strike, and though she hesitated, Hat Kid knocked him out of his stupor.

Growling loudly in frustration, the man jumped offstage and let loose a shrill whistle. What?! That was just flat-out cheating!! How unfair!

She was so focused on the injustice of it all, in fact, that the girl didn’t seem to notice the sandbags now hanging above her head. “Wait— _HAT KI_ —“ CC cried frantically, but it was too late. Clouds of sand filled the child’s vision, forcing her to squint and scratch at her eyes. Coughing only seemed to make things worse, as she only ended up inhaling more of the stuff. Right then, another sandbag fell directly onto her head, forcing its unsuspecting victim to her knees.

_Perfect_. The Boss returned to the stage, hurtling himself at the girl, who was still struggling to get the sand out of her lungs. This time, she was in no condition to dodge his spin attack, and sharp blades cut into her skin. He was circling back now... this was the final blow... she couldn’t move...

Until, suddenly, she could. Hat Kid felt energy rush back into her body, sealing her cuts and getting rid of the aching pain the heavy sandbag had caused. Bewildered, the girl looked around, and then turned to the audience. Cooking Cat grinned back at her. Even if they were usually scattered everywhere, CC always had a handful of Heart Pons on her, just in case.

Still slightly confused, the girl gave her a thankful double thumbs-up, and turned back to the fight. Her foe was actually quite close now, but she easily halted his advance with another homing attack.

**WHAT**?! SHE WAS ON THE GROUND JUST A SECOND AGO!! HOW DID SHE RECOVER FROM THAT?! Losing his temper just a bit, the Mafia Boss threw a mini-tantrum, roaring and stomping. Cooking Cat shook her head. It was kind of funny how, if anything, the full-grown leader of the _Mafia_ was acting far more childish that the literal child he was fighting. And, wait— were her eyes playing tricks on her, or was that _fire_ radiating off of him?!

Once he’d gotten the anger out of his system, the Mafia Boss hopped onto one of the background platforms. He threw his weapons— a rather odd thing to do in the middle of a fight, Hat Kid noted— and jumped back down to the stage. It soon became apparent as to _why_ he’d discarded his cleavers, however, as the two knives began to spin towards her. Thinking quickly, the girl sprinted towards the Boss and landed another hit on him, causing the cleavers to halt their advance and fly back into his hands.

Without a moment’s hesitation, her opponent pulled the sandbag trick again, jumping offstage. This time, though, she was prepared. Looking up, Hat Kid waited for the first wave of bags to fall and then — AGH! She was knocked over yet _again_ as a mafioso slammed into her. Thankfully, the goon had actually knocked her out of the way of the second row of bags, but still! Bringing in other people wasn’t fair at all! He’d probably seen how badly she’d been deterred the by the first sandbags, and taken advantage of that. She huffed. Fine, then— she’d just be ULTRA prepared next time!

The Mafia Boss returned to the stage, clearly angry that the sandbags hadn’t worked as effectively as they had last. He needed another distraction, some way to further deter this nuisance! But what could possibly... wait. His scowl quickly became a grin, as his face lit up. A smug expression on his face, the Boss raised a hand and snapped, resulting in a _very_ familiar figure to drop down from the rafters.

“I’ve got your friend captured, and soon, you will BOTH perish!” he gloated, prompting Hat Kid to look up in astonishment.

There hung Mustache Girl, suspended by a single rope. A combination of momentum from the drop and her efforts to get free caused the girl to swing, like a very loud, high-pitched pendulum. Hat Kid stared at her in surprise. Mu! With all the hubbub, she’d completely forgotten about her friend! The child cringed, ashamed at the realization.

“Let go of me, you psycho!” Well, it was good to see she was still as spunky as ever. HK wondered momentarily what had happened to the mysterious figure she’d first seen back in that alleyway, who’d beaten up two Mafia like it was nothing. It felt like every encounter since, Mu had needed saving...

Oh well. It was probably just a bunch of bad luck. She could understand that. Shaking her head to focus, Hat Kid shifted her attention just in time to dodge another round of sandbags, figuring out that she could avoid the charging mafioso by lunging over him. Seeing his attack become even _less_ effective, the Mafia Boss jumped back on stage, and threw another fit. Hmm... perhaps this time she could take advantage of this! Smirking, the girl swiftly ran up to him, whacking her foe as many times as she could. Wh- huh?

To her dismay, the blows had no effect, instead simply bouncing off of him and squeaking, as if he were some sort of toy. She stared at her weapon in confusion. Why hadn’t that worked? Why was it so... quiet? Everyone in the room was staring in silence. Even the music had turned off! ...somehow. And then, all at once, they started _laughing_.

If she’d thought being laughed at by _one_ person was bad, try literal _hundreds_! The only two who weren’t laughing, in fact, were CC, who was simply looking at the child sorrowfully, and Mu, who was doing something akin to a facepalm without the palm part, for obvious reasons.

“YOU CAN ONLY HURT PEOPLE WHEN THEY’RE BLUE, DUMMY! _EVERYONE_ KNOWS THAT!!” she fumed, staring at her fellow rebel in utter disbelief and _maaaybe_ slightly reconsidering her decision to recruit the girl.

When they were... blue? A memory surfaced, from just yesterday. Yes, now that she thought about it, the girl _distinctly_ remembered her mother telling her something like that— and _she’d_ been too distracted to actually listen to the advice. She slammed a palm against her forehead. _Why_ hadn’t she paid more attention?! She would have avoided so much embarrassment and humiliation!

Hat Kid adjusted her stance, blinking away the tears in the corners of her eyes (when had those gotten there?) and giving the Mafia Boss a hard glare. Still snickering, the man hopped offstage and resumed the battle, calling for another round of sandbags, which she once again dodged with relative ease.

As the Boss planned his next move, the child noticed that he was, indeed, now a lovely shade of cobalt blue. The color was so bright and seemingly _obvious_ that she almost felt it was mocking her, somehow. With a huff, she bopped her opponent over the head, who stumbled back in pain. Ha! Easy-peasy!

The smug grin she wore was enough to push him over the edge, and the Mafia Boss threw another fit. How DARE she?! Now this, this _puny_ , _insignificant brat_ was making _him_ look like an idiot! He was better than this, he was better than _her_ , **HE was the future ruler of the UNIVERSE!!!** But no matter what he did, she managed to adapt or wriggle her way out of it, and the boost of energy he’d received from his Time Piece was starting to fade. The man had decided to go easy on this hatted kid (mostly due to underestimating her), but now it was time to pull out the **big guns.** He looked to the front row, which seated the higher-ups of his lackeys, and nodded towards the stage.

“ **Mafiaaaaa Ball!** ”

HK raised an eyebrow, holding back laughter. ‘Mafia Ball’? What, was he going to throw a bouncy ball at her or something? Confident, she stuck out her tongue. “Bring it!”

Cooking Cat, in contrast, widened her eyes in horror. The infamous ‘Mafia Ball’— he was really getting serious now. She’d heard the rumours, of course. Every respectable, or rather, disrespect-able mafioso aspired to have the privilege of becoming a part of it one day. It was exactly what it sounded like, a ball of Mafia, and, according to local legend, no-one had survived it. Ever.

The grin was, obviously, wiped off of her face when several Mafia leapt onstage, forming a massive sphere in barely a second. The Boss sneered down at her, rolling the ball in her direction from on top, and stumbled.

As it turned out, this brat had far more luck than any creature should reasonably expect to have. _Apparently,_ someone had ditched the show or something, and now his ball resembled that yellow thing from a video game he’d seem once. Whoever had DARED to skimp out better have a **pecking good excuse** — oh. Wait. It was that one guy who really liked unconventional weapons, right? What was his name again? **It didn’t matter**. Last he’d heard, the guy had been sent into the stratosphere by the stupid mustached freak, using **one of his own spike-barrel-things, no less**. Ugh. **What an idiot.**

This empty spot was on the outside, so it wouldn’t cause the whole ball to fall apart, but it was also _juuuust_ big enough for, say, a little hatted annoyance to slip through. Just great.

As the Boss kept rolling, resorting to waiting for the girl to slip up and get run over, said girl began to panic. She’d learned to never call a Boss Fight easy _last_ time, hadn’t she?! What was she even meant to think of THIS?!

“Hat Kid! Hit him already!” She almost paused, sputtering in disbelief at her friend.

“Um? Hello? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO HIT HIM,” the girl shouted back, gesturing to the very obvious height difference between them.

Mu rolled her eyes. “C’mon! Crawl up and hit him!”

Oh. Well, now that she thought about it, the ball didn’t seem like it would be too hard to scale, given its fairly bumpy surface. Actually, maybe she could just kind of ride right up! When the gap was at the perfect angle, Hat Kid jumped in and was quickly carried to the top. One satisfying hit to the Boss, and the entire ball exploded, scattering Mafia all over the Theatre. Nice!

Without a moment’s hesitation, however, the Boss began another attack.

“ **ULTRA CHARGE!** ”

Essentially just an upgraded version of ‘Super Charge’, HK dodged both the surges and bouncing sparks with ease.

“ _MEGA CHARGE!_ ” he screamed, just a hint of desperation in his tone. The shout frightened her enough to pause, immediately feeling the sting of a red spark against her skin. It was... unhinged. Animalistic. She’d known him for less than an hour, yet his voice was hardly recognizable. A harsher jolt of pain snapped her out of it, this time from one of the surges, and she managed to evade the sped up attacks. She almost felt bad hitting him, now, seeing that something was very much wrong with the leader of the Mafia, but wanted to end the fight as quickly as possible. Perhaps it was the Time Piece that had made him act like that? Her mother _had_ said they could change people. If that was indeed the case, she needed to get the Piece away from him as quickly as possible!

Another failed Mafia Ball and a couple of spin attacks later, the man swayed dizzily right in center stage. He looked like he was about to collapse. One more blow, and he’d be finished. This was the final hit. Then she could _finally_ go home and take a nap. She figured she deserved it, after all this. Using every last bit of strength she could muster, Hat Kid smacked the Mafia Boss right in his dumb face, causing the overhead music to fade into an electric guitar solo and the stage’s curtains to swish closed. The Boss himself, upon making contact with her umbrella, burst into... purple... goo? Was— was this stuff his guts?! Eww!

While she did her best to get the gross whatever-it-was off of her, Mu squirmed about on the floor to get free of her bonds. In the explosion, it so happened, one of the Boss’s cleavers had commodiously cut her down, and she’d subsequently face planted the stage. Once untied, Mustache Girl joined Hat Kid in center stage, who’d managed to find her Time Piece among the Mafia Boss’s remains.

“Good job, kid! I knew you could do it!” She smiled. At long last, the fight was over! Maybe a bit of a... gruesome end... but frankly, she was too tired to care. Surely, nothing could go wrong now!

A short cough broke the silence, reminding the duo that they were still very much not alone. In sync, they turned to the audience, the stage’s lighting making them appear rather menacing. All at once, the Theatre erupted into chaos, mafiosos screaming and fleeing and bumping into one another. CC, it seemed, had left already, thankfully, avoiding the clamor. In seconds, the room was empty, and the doors slammed shut.

With a sigh, Hat Kid started to leave as well, but found herself spinning instead. After stopping herself, the girl checked to see if her Time Piece was okay, only to find it gone! “What?” she mumbled, looking at the floor in a panic.

“So what do these things do, anyway? Are they some sort of rare collectors item for _nerds_?” Mu asked, accenting the last word in a way that made it sound like an insult. HK didn’t know what a ‘nerd’ was, but she most certainly was not it! Indignantly, she turned to her friend, only to find the other girl nonchalantly tossing the Time Piece up and down, on one finger no less! Alarmed, she raised her hands to signal Mu to be cautious, but it was too late. The relic slipped from her grasp, and despite both girls’ attempts to catch the thing, it shattered against the hard wood.

“Are they some sort of rare c... wait, huh?” Both children found themselves beck in the positions they’d stood in just a few moments prior, with the exception of the Time Piece, now whole again but on the floor. Mu stepped forward, as if wanting to grab the Piece, but stopped, seemingly having had a revelation of sorts.

“ **Woah, WHAT?!** ”

So they’d come to the same conclusion. _That_ was what Time Pieces could do— rewind— and possibly fast forward— _**time**_.

With much more care than she’d used previously— or was it later, now?— Mu picked up the hourglass. “Wha... did, uhm... did you know about this?” Hat Kid didn’t like the way she was clenching the relic to her body, and wrenched it away from the girl before shaking her head ‘no’. Well, she _had_ known they could do _something_ , but she’d never have guessed they could _time travel_! Then again... ‘Time Piece’. It was kind of obvious, huh...

“This is _crazy_!” Mu squealed with glee, flailing her arms wildly. “Do you even realize what could be done with these?”

She skipped closer. “We could make it so that you never got punched in the face by the Mafia that one time!”

“We could beat up the Mafia, travel back in time, and then beat them up again!”

She set her hand on HK’s back. “No, wait, we could make it so the Mafia never arrived on the island!”

From out of nowhere, a spotlight gravitated on the two. “Wait, wait, wait, even better! We could be crime-fighting time travellers!”

Well... while that did sound fun, Hat Kid wasn’t so sure. Time travel was a dangerous thing, she could figure that out from logic alone. Changing up the past, especially as majorly as Mu was suggesting... who knew how that would affect the future? Who knew if Time Piece time travel was even safe? She hadn’t spent nearly enough time outside to be able to dictate what was a crime and what wasn’t! Besides, the thought of her mother’s reaction to her going against her wishes, and that glint in Mu’s eye, left a pit in her stomach.

So, definitively, she shook her head, the dramatic spotlight flickering off, and stuffed the hourglass into her pocket dimension in case Mustache Girl got any ideas. The latter moved away, stunned, before jabbing an accusatory finger toward Hat Kid. “Wait, what?! This doesn’t make any sense!” She narrowed her eyes, taking a step closer. “You have all this power, and you’re not gonna use it to fight evil?” HK put her hands on her hips, giving yet another head shake. This wasn’t even _her_ power, and it certainly wasn’t Mustache Girl’s!

Her companion, unable to comprehend her opposition, twitched her hands in a combination of frustration and confusion. She turned away, thinking to herself. HK figured it would be best to leave her alone, for now.

“I you’re not gonna use them to fight evil... **then I will!** ” Wait, no! She realized too late that Mustache Girl had gotten the wrong idea, and soon found said girl glowering only inches from her face, pointing once more. “I’m not gonna let this island remain as Mafia Town! I’ll collect all the **Time Pieces** for myself! **You have my word on it!** ”

Not-so-accidentally bumping into Hat Kid on her way, Mustache Girl ran off stage and out of the Theatre. The child stared after her, too surprised to try and follow. What... just happened? Were they enemies now? Surely not... right?

As she started to head out, the girl noticed something was off. Had her hammerspace been this light before? Glancing into a nonexistent pocket, Hat Kid realized that she was significantly _poorer_ than she’d been before the battle.

Only half of her money remained, leaving her with a grand total of _63 Pons_. There was no way she could afford that other badge _now_!

“ _ **MUSTACHE GIIIRL!**_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. It has... literally been over a month? Woah?
> 
> I won’t get too into detail, but believe it or not I’ve actually been kind of busy. I know, quarantine and whatnot, but I guess I got so used to nothing that having so much happen all at once kinda threw me off.
> 
> The main thing, though, was a new game I got, which I’ve been playing basically all day ever since. I’m not losing interest in the fic! Just wasting all my free time, heh...
> 
> Anyway! I will endeavor to keep closer to the two week update schedule, instead of five weeks.
> 
> Moving swiftly on, we’re finally moving on from Mafia Town! Yay! We’ll come back to it, of course, but from here on out the story starts picking up.
> 
> \- x -
> 
> I imagine the Mafia have held other fight-shows in their Theatre. They don’t quite strike me as the type to enjoy musicals/plays...
> 
> I cut a few repeat attacks, since that’s not really fun to write OR read.
> 
> HC that Mafia Boss can use magic but kinda sucks at it lol
> 
> Also, thoughts in bold denote they are more influenced by a Time Piece than other thoughts. Er, most of the time.
> 
> How does this kid not have a concussion?
> 
> Apologies if I got MB’s “capture” line wrong, it was hard for me to hear in the stream I was using...
> 
> Oh hey, remember that one line way back in Chapter 7? Guess it was kinda important!
> 
> I think I rushed the end of the fight a bit, but I really wanted to get to the ending cutscene and don’t really know how I would fix it. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Hm.  
> Wonder what’ll happen now that HK knows what Time Pieces do?


	16. Intermission: The Way the Cookie Crumbles pt.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Social Link Go!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaat? I’m posting a chapter on time for once?!
> 
> So yeah, hooray :) Also, happy 4th of July to those who celebrate it! And have a good day to those who don’t <3

The Theatre was empty and dimly lit, long deserted by its previous audience and performers. In stark contrast to the show, the large room was now eerily silent, only the occasional muffled shout infiltrating its thick walls. Outside, the Mafia had forgotten their earlier fear; even forgotten their own leader, it seemed. Everyone had returned to daily life.

Everyone, except Hat Kid.

The girl sat glumly on the edge of the stage, staring at the half-frozen, half-eaten cookie in her hands. She’d remembered it while checking her Pons for the nth time, though the treat offered little consolation.

After the whole Mustache Girl incident, HK just couldn’t bring herself to go home. Mother had been right. Her first friend was already gone. How long had their alliance lasted? A day? Perhaps she simply wasn’t cut out to make friends...

On the opposite side of the Theatre, the double doors were quietly opened, letting in a faint ray of light. Gentle footsteps padded down the aisle. Hat Kid didn’t hear them over the loud crunch of her cookie.

“...Hat Kid? You alright, sugar?”

She looked up, startled, to see Cooking Cat take a seat next to her. The feline looked incredibly worried. “I wanted to talk to ya’ after the big show thing, but you never came out. When it started getting late, I figured I should check if you were still here... looks to me like I made the right choice.” The child hadn’t considered anyone would want to talk to her! How long had CC been waiting? She looked away guiltily and mumbled an apology.

“No worries, hon. But ya’ look pretty down. Somethin’ happen?” She flinched at the question, memories flooding back.

“Uh... yeah. Mustache Girl and I had an... argument. Now she wants to steal all the stuff I, um, lost.” The girl decided to omit exactly  _ why _ . She could only assume this was all due to the strange effects her mother had said Time Pieces had on people. She didn’t need to lose Cooking Cat too!

“Oh dear... I haven’t really met the girl, but she makes herself well-enough known. Hot-headed and impulsive, but she has a noble enough cause, if I remember correctly. A bit too violent for my tastes, though...” Hat Kid nodded. That sounded like Mustache Girl, alright. “Listen. I know from personal experience that losing friends is hard, especially when it all ends with a fight. But you can’t just... sit around and feel awful for the rest of your life, you know? It’s not healthy.” The feline was right, of course. She’d have to suck it up and continue her mission, especially now that she was competing with her former friend, but still... “Look, I’m not askin’ ya’ to get over it right away. That’s impossible, unless you never really cared in the first place. It could take months, or even years... But don’t let yourself fall apart because of someone else, okay? You’ve gotta persevere, have hope that it’ll be okay. And if you need help with that, I’ll be right here! Though, personally, I don’t think you’ll need it. You might just be the strongest person I know.”

Hat Kid perked up at the compliment. “...really?”

“Really. You defeated the BOSS of the MAFIA  alone , for goodness’s sake! And when you were stressin’ out, right there at the beginning, did you give up? No! You kept going, despite the odds, despite the crowd, despite him throwin’ everything he had at ya’.” Huh... she did, didn’t she? “Not just any kid could’ve done that! Heck, I don’t think an  _ adult  _ could’ve. If ya’ focus on the positive things, I bet you’ll feel a whole lot better,” the cat advised.

Well... she HAD beaten the Mafia Boss. And gotten another Time Piece. Plus, she’d learned just what Time Pieces could do! That would probably be helpful. And though she’d lost Mustache Girl, she wasn’t alone. She still had friends! In fact, she was with one right now. Maybe... everything wasn’t so bad, after all.

She looked back to CC, a small smile on her face. In thanks, she offered the feline half of her half-cookie.

The cat was glad the girl was looking better, but hesitated when accepting her gift. What she could only assume was a cookie looked very odd, misshapen and incredibly flat. It was also cold to the touch, especially noticeable because the Theatre was hot and fairly stuffy. Nonetheless, she gave it the benefit of the doubt, and took a polite bite.

She almost spit it out. Once the cat got over the pastry’s ice-cold temperature, she discovered it was incredibly hard to chew, and tasted of nothing but ice and sugar. She forced herself to swallow the abomination, and looked at the remainder of her half reluctantly. Maybe she’d just... put it in a pocket. Eat the rest... later.

Alarmingly, Hat Kid appeared to see absolutely nothing wrong with her cookie, happily gulping down the rest. Almost as if she was used to  _ worse  _ food. Cooking Cat didn’t like the thought. She’d long ago made it her mission in life to make good food available to all, even the Mafia, and the girl certainly wasn’t exempt! But she shouldn’t get ahead of herself— perhaps there was a reasonable explanation, and she was merely jumping to conclusions. The child’s past was still unknown to everyone, she reminded herself, and so she decided to simply ask directly.

“Hat Kid, hon, I don’t mean to be rude, but uh... well. What kinda food do you...  _ usually _ ... eat?”

The girl raised an eyebrow, but looked away in thought. “Uh... it’s like those fish sandwiches the Mafia sell, I guess. Why?”

_ Fish sandwiches _ ? Did she  really eat one of those bland,  _ tasteless  _ lumps of soggy bread and old tuna, and consider it  _ normal _ ?! CC could only really think of a few explanations. Poverty was pretty rare, seeing as Pons practically grew on trees, but it did still exist. Yet, it didn’t seem like that was the case. In fact, the girl’s outfit almost looked like the type of thing royalty had once worn! Surely she didn’t prioritize her appearance over her health..?

It took her a minute to actually register Hat Kid’s question, and she made her decision right then and there. No matter her concerns, the child needed somewhere that she could just relax,  _ especially  _ considering the past few hours. “Oh, well, I was thinking that perhaps you’d like to come over to my place for lunch? I’m sure you must be tired, after all that, and I’d love to have you,” the feline offered. Hat Kid’s face lit up.

“YES!! Um, please.” Cooking Cat was more than right— the battle had left her absolutely  _ exhausted _ . And, though her cookie’s high sugar content had given her some energy, she knew that it wouldn’t last long. Besides, she had never actually visited someone else’s house before! This was gonna be so cool!

The cat chuckled at her companion’s enthusiasm. “Alright, follow me. It’s not much, but it’s home!”

** ____________________________________________ **

CC lived in a modest little cottage on the outskirts of town, with a splendid view of the ocean. Apparently, the Mafia weren’t particularly well-versed in the value of property, only taking into account said property’s size. Consequently, they’d ended up selling a ton of beachfront property for absurdly cheap, and the feline had quickly seized the opportunity.

“It’s not too fancy or anythin’, but I spend most of my time workin’ anyway. ‘Sides, it’s away from all the hubbub and such. Goons don’t often come ‘round these parts,” she’d explained.

Hat Kid thought it looked  _ lovely _ . Sure, it wasn’t as grand as the manor, but it was much more warm and inviting. Plus, the open sky and deep blue ocean stretched on for  _ miles _ behind it, making it look like a painting, almost. A place that people were welcome to see, not forced out by an endless blizzard.

The inside was cozy, and in much better condition than her own house. Floors didn’t squeak or look like they’d fall apart any second, the place was brightly lit thanks to its many windows, and it was overall fitted with more modern versions of the appliances she was used to. Her immediate instinct was to  _ explore _ , inspect every nook and cranny of the house. But that would be rude, and so she kept herself stationed at Cooking Cat’s side.

“Welcome to my house! Feel free to make yourself at home,” the cat smiled. Hat Kid decided not to take her up on it. She’d rather not be at home, right now; as great as her mother was, the mansion left a lot to be desired. “Since you’re staying for lunch, I’d better start preparing it right away! It should only take a few minutes, but you can look around all ya want. Just don’t break anything, please.” Wait, really? Mother never let her go wherever she wanted, and that was in their own house! Cheering, the child adjusted her sprint hat, took a deep breath, and sped off.

There was only one floor, but it felt like just the right size. She’d always thought the manor felt empty, as if there should’ve been more people living there. Maybe it was because her father was always too busy to come home? Or because all the attendants were on vacation?

Never mind that. She went down the wide hallway, peeking into every room. All very nice, of course, but nothing particularly caught her attention. Lastly came the living room, a nice open space at the end of the hallway. A couple of chairs and couches littered the room, and the central coffee table was covered in— books! Cookbooks, to be exact.

When you live in a highly isolated manor for nine years, you get bored pretty quick. Hat Kid had read nearly every book in the place, even the super lame ones that she barely understood, and was always eager to find new material.

So naturally, the girl immediately plopped down onto the nearest sofa, grabbed a book, and began reading.

** ____________________________________________ **

The food only took 15 minutes to make. CC hadn’t wanted to keep her guest waiting, after all, and as such chose to cook a simple, yet delicious soup.

“Lunch’s ready!” she called, pouring it into two bowls and leaving the remainder to keep warm on the stove. The child had seemed so excited to explore— she struck Cooking Cat as a free spirit, really. Though she had to admit, it was endearing to see her politely wait for permission. Hat Kid’s smile was infectious, and she couldn’t help but grin just seeing the girl run off. It almost made the cat want to explore the cottage, herself!

As she brought the steaming bowls to the table, Hat Kid returned, face immediately lighting up. “Woah! It smells so good!”

“I should hope so! Dig in,” the feline encouraged. The girl didn’t hesitate, quickly grabbing her spoon and taking a bite. “Ah— careful! It’s still hot!”

A wave of flavor hit her, unlike anything she’d experienced before. The soup was warm and creamy, the polar opposite of mom’s cold, crunchy cookies. She decided right then and there that this was her new favorite food.

CC watched in awe (and shock) as the child before her gulped down the burning hot dish, seemingly not bothered by its temperature whatsoever. Which, once again, brought up the question; who exactly  _ was  _ this girl?

She cleared her throat, nervously trying to get her mind off of the topic. It wasn’t any of her business, anyway. She found herself asking, “I-I take it you’re enjoying the soup?”

Hat Kid nodded vigorously. It was the  _ best _ thing she’d ever tasted! However, she noticed that Cooking Cat hadn’t even taken a bite. In fact, the feline was looking at  _ her _ , a somewhat subdued look on her face. “Um... was I not supposed to like it..?”

CC jolted out of her thoughts, and frantically waved her paws. “No, no! Of course not! I’m glad you like it! I was just, thinkin’... ah, never mind.” She finally picked up her spoon, carefully raising some soup and blowing on it, for some reason. Whatever the cat had been thinking about, it certainly peaked the girl’s curiosity. Nonetheless, if Cooking Cat didn’t want to talk about it, that was fine! As silence settled over the pair, Hat Kid contented herself with finishing off the contents of her bowl.

“Thank you!” she chirped, picking up her dishes and sliding off of the chair.

“Oh, it was no problem, sugar. I love cookin’! It’s in the name— oh, hon, you don’t need to wash those.” The child, who was currently holding a sponge, turned and stared at CC in confusion.

Smiling, the cat pointed to one of her drawers, which was strangely metallic and had a bunch of buttons on it. “I have a dishwasher! ‘Sides, I’m hosting ya. I can handle the dishes myself.” A ‘dishwasher’? What was that?

Despite her puzzlement, Hat Kid returned to her seat and patiently waited for the cat to finish her soup. She still didn’t understand the whole blowing thing... it looked a lot less efficient, if you asked her.

The soup soon cooled enough for CC to just eat it, and she hurried so as not to bore her guest. She was still worried. The girl’s reaction to such a simple dish didn’t  _ seem  _ like mere politeness, but she remained unsure. Her best bet would be asking directly, of course, but it just didn’t feel right to do so so soon. In fact, she hardly knew where she stood with the girl as it was! Some strange middle ground between acquaintances and friends?

Besides, what Hat Kid really needed was some fun. Cooking Cat nearly smacked herself at the thought. Of course! After not only defeating the Mafia Boss, but losing a close friend, the girl could really use it. But what could she do?

As she finished her food and started collecting her bowl, an idea sprang to mind. The feline quickly took her dishes to the sink, deposited them there for later, and spun around.

“How’s about we bake some cookies?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quality time with Cooking Cat is a go! HK needs to recover after last chapter...
> 
> Anywho, don’t worry— this intermission will only be a two parter. We’ll be getting to the birds soon enough! I don’t plan on it being the last intermission, though, which is why it gets a title.
> 
> I don’t think there’s much in this one that I want to elaborate on? CC doesn’t canonically have a house, of course.
> 
> So yeah, see ya!


	17. Intermission: The Way the Cookie Crumbles pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Story Time!

Cooking Cat’s kitchen was soon covered in flour, with multiple cupboards hanging open and ingredients sprawled atop the counters. Teaching Hat Kid to bake had proved harder than the feline had anticipated. The girl was a wonderful listener, and she tried her best, but had an almost comically difficult time actually _understanding_ the directions. She’d tried to stir the batter with her hands, measure the flour with literal _cups_ , and had even dropped the eggs in whole, shells and all! Apologizing profusely after each mistake, of course.

It wasn’t that Cooking Cat minded— she was famous for her boundless patience— but it was a bit concerning that the child didn’t even know she couldn’t eat _eggshells_ , especially at her age. Even worse was the look of terror that crossed her face each time she’d learned of her error. Had someone punished her for every little slip-up? It left a bad taste in CC’s mouth, surpassing even her favorite scent— baked goods.

The cat decided it’d be safer for _her_ to take the cookies out of the oven, and Hat Kid made no objection. The girl still remembered the painful blister from the _last_ time she’d tried to handle an oven.

Her bad memories were dispelled as soon as the warm, sweet smell of the cookies wafted up to her nose. So much better than the cold her mother’s cookies practically radiated. These ones looked way tastier, too!

CC poured a couple of glasses of milk as they waited for the treats to cool off, humming a simple tune. She quickly discovered that there was no room on the countertops to put them.

“Oh my, we’ve certainly made a mess of this place, haven’t we?” she chuckled, placing the glasses on the dining table, instead. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me!”

“Sorry...” Hat Kid mumbled, looking at the floor guiltily.

“Oh hon, don’t you worry about it. Sometimes it can be good fun to make a proper mess!” She got to work putting away the ingredients, which didn’t take long since the cat knew her kitchen like the back of her paw. Once they were all back in place, the counters, though still messy, were significantly clearer. “There! No trouble at all.” She turned with a grin to her guest, faltering a bit when she saw the girl still looked distressed. “Hm... I think these cookies are just waitin’ to be eaten! What do you say we dig in?”

At that, the child brightened, nodding excitedly. The pair grabbed a cookie each, taking it to the table. “Now, I don’t know about you, sugar, but I find a freshly baked cookie is best dipped in a glass of cold milk. They’ll taste great either way, though! Especially since you helped make ‘em,” the feline smiled, dipping her own treat into her milk. After a moment’s hesitation, Hat Kid did the same, and bit into her cookie.

 _Woah_. These were waaay better than mom’s! In fact, they were even better than the _soup_! She hadn’t thought that was possible! Cooking Cat chuckled at the girl’s amazement. Mission fun was a success. Soon, a good majority of the treats had been eaten, with only a few left sprawled about on the tray.

“Well! I think those were exceptionally tasty, don’t you? Especially for a first-timer! Color me impressed!” the cat remarked. Hat Kid giggled and gave a little ‘aw shucks’ wave, before finishing off her last cookie and washing it down with the rest of her milk. “Oh, you’re too modest hon,” CC smiled, before glancing up at her wall clock. “My, would you look at the time! You’ve got places to be, haven’t you? I’ve taken up too much of your day as it is...” The smile fell from HK’s face as she too turned to the clock, finding it was indeed getting relatively late. Almost 4..? No, that couldn’t be right! She’d barely arrived half an hour ago! She looked back at her friend, a slight pout forming on her face. “Now now, don’t you give me that look Miss Kid! If you ever hope to retrieve all those hourglasses of yours, you can’t stay here for another three hours chattin’ with lil’ ol’ me.” The child’s eyes widened in surprise at the statement.

“H-how did you-“

“Know that those hourglass thingies were what you were lookin’ for? It wasn’t all that hard to deduce, sugar. The Boss’s been dronin’ _on and on_ about them ever since they fell. Don’t think he woulda put up the kinda fight he did if he’d just taken some special trinket of yours or somethin’. And don’t think I didn’t see you take my bucket and use it to get the key to the freezer. Encounterin’ him wasn’t no accident, was it?”

All Hat Kid could do was stare in shock, slightly impressed but mostly panicked. Had she really been so obvious about it..? Her hunt was supposed to be a secret!! What if more people had noticed?! Heck, she’d hardly even _tried_ to cover it up! There had to have been _tons_ of witnesses that’d seen her collecting Time Pieces, by now, and it wouldn’t exactly take a genius to figure out what she was doing. And now there was _Mustache Girl_ , and who was to say she wouldn’t let it slip about what the relics could do, and then there would be _thousands of people searching for Time Pieces and the world would be in chaos and she’d be a FAILURE FAILURE FAILURE—_

“Woah there, hon, calm down. Deep breaths.” A reassuring paw landed on her back, rubbing soothing circles. “I-I... I’m sorry, I should’nt’ve pried. None of my business, anyways, and you clearly didn’t want me knowin’...” The girl turned, shaking her head as she started to ground herself.

“No... it’s fine. I... trust you, just... not others...” The feline gave her a small smile.

“I appreciate it, dear. I really am sorry... I have a habit of getting way ahead of myself, and pry much too often, but... I’ll make sure my lips are sealed. And don’t worry— those Mafia are _wayyy_ too dense to figure it out themselves!” HK grinned and nodded. There was still the subject of Mu, but... “Now then! My point still stands. I hate to see ya go, but I can’t keep ya here forever, I’m afraid.”

Hat Kid froze. She honestly wouldn’t mind staying with CC forever, now that she thought about it... great food and kind company for all eternity!! But she’d so dreaded the notion of forever for such a long time that the word still sent a shiver up her spine. ‘ _You must behave or I won’t let you go out_ ,’ mother had said. ‘ _You don’t wish to stay trapped inside forever, do you?_ ’ And she had very determinedly shaken her head. _No, I want to be free, to explore_! So... what made this place different? What made her want to be here, and not there..?

She blinked, and shook it off. It didn’t matter, anyways. Cooking Cat was right. She couldn’t stay.

CC, in the meantime, had packed up the remaining cookies into a neat little Tupperware container, which the girl had gratefully taken and stuffed into hammerspace. (The cat paused at this, but shrugged it off as some hidden pocket or trick of the light.) At long last, she was escorted to the door.

“Bye, Cookie!” she started, but quickly caught herself. “U-uhm— I-I mean—sorry—“ _Stupid_! She’d been too focused on the cookies, and now probably ruined her entire relationship with Cooking Ca—

To her surprise, the feline simply laughed. “Oh, no, it’s no problem, hon! Honestly, you apologize too much for things you have no need to apologize for.”

“Y-you sure..?” Mother _hated_ when she gave her nicknames. It _had_ made her wonder why all the kids in the stories said ‘mom’ or ‘mummy’, but she’d simply assumed their parents had given up telling them to stop saying that or something.

“Of course, I don’t mind! ‘Cookie’... it sorta suits me, doesn’t it? An’ it’s shorter, too. If you wanna call me that, go ahead!” Hat Kid sighed in relief. Thank goodness Cooking Cat— Cookie?— didn’t mind! Maybe it was just her mother who disliked nicknames, then... “Say, I know this is a bit out of the blue, but... you’re leavin’ Mafia Town, right? I’m guessin’ the Mafia Boss had one of the last hourglasses in this place. That’s usually how these things work.” The child frowned, nodding. “Well, uh... I still assert that ya can’t waste _too_ much time at my place, but you’re welcome for lunch any day!” Her face lit up. A chance to have food this delicious _all_ week, plus chill with her friend? Heck yeah!!

With an ecstatic “Thank you!” and a quick wave, she was on her way, sprinting down to the docks.

____________________________________________

Hat Kid stared down at the sea of indigo below her. Branches, leaves, even the fog had a somewhat purple hue. The forest had always been taboo— even mentioning it earned her a glare from her mother, and the only things she’d ever learned of it had been from mother’s stories.

She wondered if she could remember one. Mother hardly ever told stories, these days. As she soared overhead, the girl thought she heard a laugh. Faint, from up above the canopy, but distinct. Was someone _alive_ down there? It... reminded her of something...

Ah, yes! The story of the forest!

_Once upon a time, the forest had been alive._

_Not just with people, or animals, or spirits— the_ forest _had been alive._

_Its heart lived beneath the tallest tree, lived in its roots which were connected to everyone and everything._

_And the forest lived, and loved all those who lived in it. And they lived, and loved the forest, and they listened to everything the forest told them. They listened to its stories, shared its joys and sorrows. The forest kept them safe. They kept the forest safe._

_Then tragedy struck._

_A great beast tore out the heart of the forest. “It is mine, now,” laughed the great and greedy beast, and he stole the forest from itself._

_The forest died without its heart, and those inhabitants who refused to become the beast’s slaves lived out their days in fear. The beast killed all who entered his domain, stealing their hearts too._

_He grew jealous of the Queen who ruled a kingdom nearby. “It should be mine,” thought the great beast. “Mine, mine, mine.” And so he tried to take it, as he had the forest. But the Queen refused, and was forced to cut off the forest with a fortress of ice._

_  
  
The beast hated ice._

_  
He could not come through. And the kingdom was safe, and the people were happy._

...

As she mentally recited the final line of the story, Hat Kid landed on the ice platform, the ice around her body disappearing in a puff of smoke. The girl quickly hopped off of the panel and trudged toward the manor.

She thought she should like to meet this great beast, and see for herself if he was truly as bad as her mother had warned.

‘Innocent until proven guilty’ was what her father’s law books taught, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly at this point let’s just say I’ll post new chapter _approximately_ every two weeks.
> 
> Also! I don’t really have experience writing accents or dialects, so I apologize in advance for every time someone with one talks...
> 
> Hope ya’ll enjoyed that totally true Vanessa Story™!


	18. Welcome to Sand n’ Sails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s right, but she’s wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaagh I’m so sorry. How long has it been? Five months? I really meant to get this done sooner -_- I’ve tried to make this one on the longer side, though some pointless lore got cut for the sake of staying on topic, haha.
> 
> Anyhow! Intermission’s over people. :)

It was excessively early in the morning when Cookie was awoken by the distinct clang of her doorbell. At first, she simply ignored the annoyance, chalking it up to some teen ding dong ditching her. As the rings became increasingly frantic, however, she forced herself out of bed and shuffled tiredly towards the door.  
  


“Hat Kid? What are you doin’ here? It’s... 4 in the mornin’,” the cat mumbled, still half asleep.

In response, the girl held up what appeared to be a notebook, of sorts. Its shiny plastic covers were bound at the top by several rings, and the child hastily flipped it over to the back. Unmistakably printed at the bottom in gold was a symbol CC knew very well, along with the words ‘DEAD BIRD STUDIO’. Hat Kid pointed to this name as she stared at Cooking Cat expectantly. “Where?”

CC simply blinked. It was only 4 o’ clock, gosh darn it!

Taking a deep breath, she forced a tired smile. “Dead Bird Studio? That’s over in Sand n’ Sails. Probably the most famous feature over in those parts, but it’s not exactly a tourist attraction if you’re plannin’ on goin’ there.”

The girl didn’t quite seem to hear the last sentence and began to walk away, mumbling a quick thank you.

“Hold on there, sugar. If you _are_ headin’ to the mainland, you wouldn’t mind me comin’ with, would you?” the cat interjected. “I have some business there, and I need a break from Mafia Town, anyhow...” Hat Kid looked surprised at the offer, but quickly agreed, not one to object to spending more time with Cookie.

The two were soon sailing away on a run-down little passenger ship, though it only had three passengers. Which was actually a pretty good-sized group, considering the boat’s port of origin and time of departure.

The third passenger was a tourist Hat Kid had seen around a few times, sporting the stereotypical Hawaiian-print Tee, a large camera, and— perish the thought, was he wearing _socks with sandals_?!

“Hey-y! You guys heading to Dead Bird Studios, too?” asked said tourist. Hat Kid gave a shy nod. “Nice! I’ve been wanting to see it for aaages! Of course, STEVE’s already gone TWICE... not that I care but you know that place is booked until next century and I think it’s not very considerate of him to have gone two whole times when there are clearly many other people who deserve to see it much more than—“ From there, the man’s vent turned into incoherent muttering. Hat Kid simply nodded and smiled awkwardly, trying her best to figure out what on earth he was talking about.

Thankfully, Cooking Cat saved her. “Oh, there it is! Land ahoy!” Despite its appearance, the feline had to give credit where credit was due— shipbuilding was one of the few things the Mafia were actually half decent at, and for what it was worth, the ramshackle boat had arrived relatively quickly. It made her wonder why they’d chosen Mafia of Cooks, of all things. Then again, Mafia of Boats would basically just be pirates, huh?

Sand n’ Sails was nothing like Mafia Town, which excited Hat Kid. The region was covered by rolling dunes of cream-coloured sand, a paler shade than the island’s beaches. As far as she could tell, all sides were barred from the sea by imposing cliffs, which seemed to block a large part of sea breeze. Even close to the water, Hat Kid could tell that in this heat she’d get dehydrated if she wasn’t careful.

“Alright, hon. The train is free, technically, but I ain’t too keen on takin’ it so I’ll call us a taxi.” As Cooking Cat whipped out a cell phone and began tapping, the tourist came up behind the pair, accompanied by a series of loud snaps.

He’d evidently lagged behind due to the massive number of photos he was taking. Hat Kid didn’t know why he needed so many pictures of some rocks and sand, but she waved politely anyway. In response, he turned to her and snapped a photo, leaving the girl a bit stunned from the bright light. “Oh man, this place is cool! It’s really got that desert vibe. Not as great as DBS, though. You know, Dead Bird Studio is the number one movie studio in the world! Or, well, the only one, but still.” He turned to the train station, marked by a lone sign, but whirled around. “Oh wait! You don’t have a camera, yeah?” She shook her head. “Perfect! I’ve been meaning to give this to someone. Help a fellow sightseer out, know what I’m saying?” The man shoved a badge in her hands, not waiting for a response before he raised his camera back up and left.

Well... that was bizarre. But she wouldn’t turn down a free badge! Hat Kid examined the frontside. On it was printed an old-fashioned camera, the bright yellow background imitating a flash. How fitting.

Still, she decided it couldn’t hurt to try it out. Taking off her beloved hat for a moment, the girl pondered which badge to swap out. Badge Seller had said that she couldn’t equip more without a pin to accompany them, so for now she’d have to give up an ability. Which was fine— surely there couldn’t be that many Pons in the desert, and she still wanted to try out that new badge. Definitively, Hat Kid snapped off the Magnet Badge, promising to use it in the future as she tucked it away.

By now, the taxi had arrived, its driver becoming identifiable as an owl as the vehicle approached. The bird’s nervous demeanor only heightened when they saw Cooking Cat.

“Um... D-Dead Bird Studios, right?”

“Yup! Front entrance, please.” CC knew from experience that keeping interaction with owls to a friendly minimum was best. Owls were generally either extremely timid or excessively brazen, and it didn’t help that most feared cats. This was part of the reason she’d put off her business in Sand n’ Sails for so long.

As soon as the pair had gotten in, the car sped off, and Cooking Cat hastily helped Hat Kid with her seatbelt. “Alright, hon, this’ll take a while. Dead Bird Studios is pretty far from here, unfortunately. Probably to encourage taking the train...”

As the group settled into a comfortable silence, Hat Kid decided to flip through the book she’d brought, which was apparently from this region. Perhaps it would help her understand more about Sand n’ Sails? None of the books back home had given a very good description.

This volume was one of the newer ones mother had acquired. She wasn’t exactly sure _where_ she’d gotten it, since the queen rarely left the manor, but that probably wasn’t important. The girl had been instantly interested by the book, though. Not only was it strangely formatted like a notepad, but its content was exactly what she’d needed— a mystery novel! _Death Train to Subcon Script_ , was the title. There weren’t actually any trains in Subcon, as far as she knew, but there was something about a mystery in it and so it still probably counted. After all, she was solving a mystery of her own, so it would definitely be helpful!

She flipped to the first page and started reading, excited to just let herself get lost in a book for the first time in... weeks, actually. She’d been so preoccupied she hadn’t noticed.

**——————————————————————————————**

Eventually, the taxi pulled into an immense parking lot, crowded with cars, which was directly adjacent to the studio itself. The same symbol from Hat Kid’s script was mounted above two swinging glass doors, as well as a large movie reel. This was the place, alright.

CC handed the driver some Pons, and the bird quickly sped off, leaving the two alone in front of the impressive building. “Well, hon, I’m afraid this is where we’ll hafta part ways. My business is in another part of the studio, and it’s really best if I stay out of the way of all the birds. Will you be alright on your own?” The girl nodded confidently. “Okay! If you get into any trouble, just holler! Cooking Cat will be there!” she winked.

Watching the cat amble off, Hat Kid found herself a bit nervous without Cookie’s reassuring presence. Here, she didn’t have anyone to show her the ropes, not like... Mustache Girl...

She shook her head. Just get in, find some clues, and get out, right? Simple enough! Maybe she’d even make some new friends here, too!

The girl pushed open the front doors, the eerie quiet of the parking lot instantly dispelled by muffled shouting. Oh no. She wasn’t sure she could handle shouting, at the moment. Still, she forced herself to press on, gripping her cape tightly. Towards the end of the excessively long hallway was a room with a large desk, and a groaning receptionist whose face was in their wings.

“This movie studio is too big for the both of us, **DJ Grooves**! The movie should be made by REAL birds!” squawked an eyeless bird, a different species of owl than the driver, whose golden feathers were broken up by a sharp black suit. “You **Moon Penguins** are just gonna write some loud, noisy drivel! If I wanted a bunch of peck necks to dance around while on bird seed, ha! I’d visit me grandchildren!”

“Nonsense, darling, nonsense!” replied the other main bird in the room, apparently ’DJ Grooves’. This one was a large penguin, who had somehow been dancing on tall platform shoes throughout the argument, and even twirled on occasion. “You **Owl Express birds** are just going to record another boring train-related western! You’ve done so for the last ten years, darling!”

“Wha?! No we haven’t, yer buffoon!” bit back the owl.

“ **Conductor** , darling, this year we’ll be winning the annual bird movie award, as our new movie props will bring in the audiences!”

Hat Kid gasped. Four penguins had just walked out, carrying a large case filled with... _Time Pieces_. Suddenly she felt sick.

“These **shiny things** fell from the sky! They will light our movie sets and fill them with glimmer!” DJ Grooves continued, gesturing with a flair towards the so-called props.

“Oh yeah?” The now named Conductor, paying more attention to the principle than the content of what his rival had said, sneered, and released a shrill two-fingered whistle. “Well, this time around, we’re ALSO spicing it up with our newest movie props!”

She held back a pained sigh as this time four _owls_ , notably struggling to lift a case of their own, revealed _more_ hourglasses.

“These **hourglass thingies** will be the grand jewel in our train heist western!” Conductor bragged, gesturing behind himself.

A few seconds ticked by before realization struck.

**“WHADDA WHAT?!”**

“You no-good dirty peck necks! You copied our props!” raged the Conductor, stomping around in pure anger.

“I would never, darling! Clearly you’re the one who took inspiration in my flashy new props.” Grooves was much calmer than the owl, which made it hard to notice, but Hat Kid could hear a distinct edge in his tone.

“Oooo, that does it! Get outta here with ye, I’ve got a movie to record!”

“Fine by me, darling. But we’ll be the ones who win the **annual bird movie award** , mark my word!” Both Grooves and the case bearers retreated into to massive doorway on their side of the studio, slamming the doors shut behind them.

“Oh yeah?! Let’s see how well ye do when you can’t get into the reception! _GWAHAHAHAHA_!” A glint in his nonexistent eye, the Conductor hurriedly nailed said doors shut. He paused. “Oh wait, shutting the peck necks inside the studio will force them to work harder.” Waving his wing to direct his crew, the director rushed back to his own side of the studio. “Alright, time to go, owls! Let’s make our killer movie!!” 

“Oh, and ah, receptionist, can yer PLEASE close off that vent already? I don’t want the smell of penguin to come anywhere near my crew!” With that, the bird turned, and disappeared into the studio.

Once both directors were gone, the studio actually settled into a nice ambiance, with pleasant music playing in the background. Save for the frustrated grumbling of the receptionist as they got back to work, none of the remaining birds were talking at all. Which was good, because she needed a moment to collect herself.

She’d come here to solve a mystery, plain and simple. Mother had been... irritable, as of late, and she was pretty sure she knew why. Though she’d never directly been told, Hat Kid had collected tidbits of information that made her suspect her father was missing. He was never home, for one. She’d never even met him! Not to mention that recently, mother had been going stiff at any mention of him, while in the past she’d brighten instead. And of course, her scream that one time... “he’s gone”. So obviously, Hat Kid just needed to find him, and everything would get better! It couldn’t be too hard, and she’d easily found a 100% solid lead. She’d hoped that she could take a break from Time Piece hunting, as well. After the whole... Mustache Girl thing, she really didn’t want to think about the hourglasses, not for a while.

But... while she didn’t want to admit it, the main reason for the detour was how angry Vanessa had gotten when Hat Kid had broken the bad news. The queen kept her face as measured and calm as ever, but the way her form had wavered and her curt “ _I told you so_ ” had been enough.

_Plus_ , there were apparently Time Pieces in this place! It would be dangerous not to retrieve them, but she’d been looking forward to a distraction.

Now the question was which objective she should pursue. Search for her father, or collect more Time Pieces?

  
Which would make mother talk to her again..?


	19. Legally A Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid meets a big disco penguin and a... uh... bird-ish thing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads-up, this chapter is LONG. I couldn’t find a good place to split it, and was going to skip the sneaking through part, but I had an idea for it I really liked and... yeah.
> 
> I think that most of the beginning chapters were way too short, anyway, so we’ll see how this works out.

It had been a simple task. Find 40 hourglasses, don’t talk to strangers, and don’t. Let. ANYONE figure out what Time Pieces could do.

Yet the child had come home, tail between her legs, and told Vanessa that this... _mustached_ girl had found out, decided to use the Time Pieces’ capabilities to become a ‘hero’, and was now on a journey to collect them herself. Great.

Undoubtedly, there would be other people hunting for the hourglasses; her only advantage on this front had been her charge. The girl was impressively powerful, energetic, and, thanks to the ice platforms, able to travel fairly quickly. Nonetheless, she was still a child, so it was necessary for Vanessa to keep the competition as minimal as possible. She didn’t need _more_ people tapping into the limited supply; really, it was a race for who could find the most first, seeing as whoever did would have full control over the timeline, and easily be able to take everyone else’s share. Not to mention that the mustached girl hardly seemed the careful type. Based on Nessa’s description, she was nothing more than a common thief, with a big mouth and bad attitude. It was only a matter of time before she’d let it slip what exactly Time Pieces could do, and from there the knowledge would spread like wildfire, essentially erasing any chance she had at seeing _him_ again.

It had taken all of her energy not to lose her composure in that moment.

Instead, the queen chose the cold. She had always found comfort in it— the cold welcomed her when no one else would, kept her fiery temper in check. It was far easier to retreat into icy unfeeling, to lock away her heart so that no one could hurt her ever again.

But ice was a fragile thing. Locking up her fury was not a permanent solution, she knew this. It had been accumulating within her heart of frost for some time now, and she could only hold in so much.

The ice was cracking.

**——————————————————————————————**

Hat Kid decided that, while not ideal, her best solution would be to multitask. She’d explore the studio to collect Time Pieces, and on the way keep an eye out for any clues about her father. It couldn’t be too hard, right? Besides, doing both would _guarantee_ mother would forgive her!

...she wasn’t sure what she’d do if it didn’t.

In order for her plan to be put into action, she had to figure out how exactly to get _in_. The reception desk seemed like a good place to start. She ran up to the front, waving to get the Receptionist’s attention.

“Oh, hey lil’ chirper. They’re recording right now, so no one is allowed in.” The tall owl raised a wing, wagging his index finger(feather) at her. “We’re only insured for bird staff. Letting you in would be a liability! Don’t even think about sneaking inside.” Guess she wasn’t getting much help from him.

With a huff, she stepped back and glanced around the reception area. It was actually the largest room she’d ever been in, except for maybe the Mafia Theatre. She hadn’t paid much attention to that one, though, so it didn’t count. On either side were big, glass cases, filled with rows of trophies. Above them hung high-quality posters, supposedly from each respective director’s most recent movies, and near the entrance a couple of benches and potted plants were arranged to make the room somewhat symmetrical. Even the birds clustered in the corners stood in similar positions, the only major difference being—

“Badge Seller!” she exclaimed, causing the twitching vendor to turn around. They’d been examining the trophy case behind them, likely belonging to the Conductor; particularly a lone silver trophy, which was hidden in the corner as if its golden companions were ashamed of it. Weird.

“ _Welcome, young one. I see you’ve made it to Sand n’ Sails... without much trouble, I hope?_ ” She nodded. “ _That is good to hear. It can be quite dangerous around these parts, especially when it comes to those two directors. They’ve always been rivals, but it’s gotten worse, as of late. I’d be careful around them, if I were you..._ ” She nodded, glancing warily towards the left doors. Though muffled, she could hear shouting coming from the other side, and— was that an explosion?!

“ _Ah, you’ve obtained a new Badge!_ ” they observed, leaning down to tap the new object. “ _Oh dear, I don’t have any competition, do I?_ ”

She giggled and shook her head. The tourist was friendly, but if he was planning on selling Badges he’d need much more variety... not to mention, he’d need to actually sell them instead of just giving them away. Besides, the Seller would always be her #1!

“ _What a relief!_ ” they chuckled, straightening somewhat. “ _So then, what brings you to my humble stall? Hoping to make a purchase? Or just saying hi?_ ” She thought for a moment. Well, it HAD been a while since she’d bought anything, and she’d collected quite a few Pons earlier in Mafia Town...

Yeah, she could probably afford something new! Though, she hadn’t tested out either of her current Badges yet, so she’d have to keep it stored for now. Raising a hand to her hat, she tapped on a Badge, mimicking what the Badge Seller had done. Though she couldn’t see it, they sounded like they were grinning. “ _Haha! Alright, just a moment._ ” They summoned three Badges, this time making the items bounce as they exited the bag in single file. She gasped. “ _Have your pick! It seems my wares are excited to see you,_ ” they laughed.

Hat Kid held a hand to her chin as she thought. There was the yellow one with flies, again— yuck! Unlike last time, she decided to take a look at it. Why would the Seller have a Badge like this, anyway? What did it even do? “ _Hm? Are you considering the **Mumble Badge**?_” Badge Seller asked. “ _It plugs your ears, so you’ll only hear vague mumbling. On sale for the low price of 800 Pons! What a bargain, right? Oh, but it seems you don’t have enough... what a shame._ ” She stuck her tongue out at them, earning a small chuckle. That didn’t sound like a good deal at all! Why would she want to only hear mumbling? Wait. Was this one of those useless Badges they’d been talking about? It had to be! Who would waste _800_ Pons on such a thing, though, she had no idea.

Hat Kid raised an eyebrow, glancing between the Badge and Badge Seller. Maybe one of the Mafia? Not to be rude, but they weren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed...

The remaining two Badges were more useful-looking. One she’d seen last time, the one with a bunch of blue stars, but the other was new. Its picture was of a boot, remarkably similar to one of her own save for the small wing on its heel. She stared at the two, trying to decide which one looked cooler. Well, the red one DID have a laser on it, plus the stars were making cute little faces sooo...

“ _Decided, have we?_ ” asked the Seller, as Hat Kid pointed resolutely towards the middle. “ _That is the **Projectile Badge**. With it equipped, simply hold and release the button on your umbrella for a powerful beam attack!_” Oooo, she could shoot lasers? Awesome!! But, uh, maybe not the best idea to test at the moment. “ _This one costs 300 Pons._ ” She nodded, smiling as the Seller received their money and her new Badge floated into her hands. “ _Your hat is full already, so I’m afraid I can’t equip it for you this time,_ ” they apologized. That was okay! She quickly stored the Badge so she could clap. 

“ _Oh, thank you, thank you,_ ” they said with an exaggerated bow. “ _A compliment from my best customer is flattering indeed! Ah, but I must get going. A traveling merchant is not much without the traveling! Take care of yourself and that Badge, alright?_ ”

“I will!” she ventured, waving as the Badge Seller disappeared. Great! She had another Badge, plus she was feeling better after seeing a familiar face. Still, she needed to get into the studio. The girl doubted she could find a way to get through the right side’s doors, at least not quickly, so she approached the owl guarding the left entrance.

“Uh yeah sorry, the **Conductor** has said only birds are allowed past here. And he specifically said no penguins of any kind.” What was with everyone telling her only birds could go in? The receptionist had said something about only being ‘insured for bird staff’, but she didn’t actually know what that meant. Was it like unsure? “I have no idea -why-,” the owl continued, “I’m just a passenger on his train. Whatever gets us back on the train faster, I guess.”

With a dramatic sigh, Hat Kid swiveled and surveyed the room. She was already out of ideas, but maybe she could get some information from the various birds while thinking.

The nearby owls probably had some good info, but most of them looked busy, reading a newspaper or talking frantically on the phone. She walked up to the only unoccupied one, who was sitting awkwardly in the middle of the bench.

“Uhhh, hi there,” they greeted, a bit startled. “I’m an **Express Owl**. Which really just means I ride the **Owl Express** that the **Conductor** runs.” The bird fidgeted and glanced around the room, taking a peek at their watch. “I need to ride the train to get to work, but the **Conductor** makes unexpected stops all the time. I have no idea why we’re at a movie studio. I need to be at work in 15 minutes!”

She frowned sympathetically, unsure how to help the anxious owl. She was no scholar on bird law, but surely that couldn’t be legal! Assuming the Express Owls were paying passengers, of course. And if they weren’t, why would they continue to take the train? She and Cookie had taken a taxi. Maybe there were some places only the train could go?

The girl shook her head, deciding she’d work it out another time. Though, she still felt bad about leaving the owl like this... oh!

Quickly reaching into her pocket dimension, she retrieved the Tupperware CC had given her and nudged a cookie onto the bird’s knee. Feeling its weight, they jolted and looked down, tilting their head at the baked good. “Oh, um... thanks?” The phrase came out as more of a question, but they had relaxed a little so she considered it a success. Flashing a smile, Hat Kid returned her container to hammerspace, skipping over to the other side of the room.

“...weird kid,” mumbled the owl, taking a tentative bite before lighting up. “This is actually pretty good!”

Contrary to the owls, the penguins chose to stand in front of their bench, doing absolutely nothing except for snapping their flippers, somehow. This probably would’ve been intimidating, had they been doing so in sync.

As Hat Kid passed the first, they leaned over and looked around secretively. “Don’t tell anyone this, but before **DJ Grooves** became fascinated by movies, he actually ran a night club. I know, crazy, right? Who would have thought.” She held back a giggle at the information. It was in the name! _DJ_ Grooves. Night clubs were like, the first thing that came to mind when she thought of DJs.

Distracted, she accidentally bumped into the other penguin, who pointed an accusatory flipper at her. “Hey! Watch where you’re going, buddy! Don’t get near **DJ Grooves** , ‘aight?” She held up her hands placatingly, backing up to try and appease the penguin. They did calm down a little, but kept their suspicious expression. “ **DJ Grooves** means a lot to us, so we’ve gotta protect him. Don’t you think of anything, yeah? I’ll be watching you, buddy. Eyes on you.”

She nodded hurriedly, continuing to back away as they stared her down. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. She still wanted to avoid violence wherever she could, and she’d _just_ gotten he— ow!

She’d bumped into something, turning just in time to stop it from toppling over. “Hey hey, little chirper! Be careful! That thing cost us 3,000 Pons, and if it gets damaged the compensation’s comin’ out of your wallet!” shouted the Receptionist, peering over his tall desk. Hat Kid smiled sheepishly, carefully straightening the machine out, and after a moment he turned away with a sigh.

What was this, anyway? For three _thousand_ Pons it had to do something cool. Turning the handle, she waited while the machine started up with a rumble, shaking a little too much. Just as she began to worry it was going to explode, something fell out of the chute. A pair of glasses! It made sense, considering the larger fake glasses attached to the top of the machine and the fact that every penguin here seemed to own a pair. Their lenses were tinted black, and she found that wearing them also made her vision darker. Confused, she tried using them in different positions, but ultimately gave up and shoved the things in storage. They did look cool, but it wasn’t worth it for her to impair her vision. She had two whole important missions, after all!

Hat Kid straightened, trying to regain her focus. She was taking too many detours! At this rate, she wouldn’t find a way in until next year.

Just then, the Receptionist‘s grumbling to himself as he worked caught her attention. With a mischievous grin, she put her back to the desk and did her best to listen in.

“Who does he think he is? I’m a _receptionist_ , not a repairbird. How am I even supposed to get up there, climb up the pecking trophy case? Ugh... you know what, I’m just going to leave it open. Closing vents is _not_ in my job description...” A-ha! The vent, of course! She’d just crawl through it, like she‘d done in the Mafia HQ. Good thing there were so many open vents lying around!

He had mentioned climbing the case sarcastically, but it actually sounded like the best route for her to take. Once she had made sure no one was looking, Hat Kid jumped on top of the nearest display, absently noticing that this one held mostly silver trophies, excepting a single gold one set proudly in full view. Huh.

With the help of a conveniently placed ‘Filming in Progress’ sign, she easily made it up to the vent, its grate hanging precariously by one bolt. Overestimating how difficult it would be to remove, the girl yanked the grate off with much more force than necessary, startling herself and immediately losing her grip. She watched on in horror as it fell to the ground, clocking the Receptionist square in the head.

“What the— hey! Get down here this instant, young lady! One step into that shaft and you’ll be fined 7,000 Pons for trespassing!” Yikes! She needed to get out of there, fast. Ignoring the bird’s warnings, Hat Kid slipped into the vent. It was actually the perfect size for her to stand upright, but she crouched a bit, doing her best to muffle the echoey clank of her boots against the metal.

She wasn’t sure why, but breaking into Dead Bird Studio felt way cooler than breaking into the Mafia HQ. None of the Mafia had really cared, so finding a path to their Boss was more of an obstacle than anything. Now, though, she felt like some sort of spy! Maybe the whole mystery thing was just getting to her.

It took Hat Kid a second to realize she was no longer in the vent, and she had to clap both hands over her mouth to prevent herself from crying out.

The shaft ended high up on a wall, which made sense considering it had begun high up too. Hat Kid, too distracted by her thoughts to pay attention to where she was going, had walked right out, and was currently plummeting to the floor. It was a pretty long ways down, and though the drop wouldn’t be enough to kill her it was definitely going to hurt.

As she squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the pain, the girl felt her arm shoot out, seemingly of its own free will. Realizing her fall had slowed significantly, she chanced a peek. Her umbrella was in her outstretched hand, wide open, and she stared at it bewildered while floating down to safety.

It had felt like some strange force had pulled out her umbrella for her, but what? Thinking hard, the girl managed to retrieve a memory from the first day she’d left the house. “ _Ah, the **Hover Badge**. It allows you to automatically pull out your umbrella, saving you from deadly impact!_” Of course! She’d honestly forgotten what the Badge did, since she mostly just bought it because it looked cool... but it turned out to be pretty handy!

She patted the Badge in silent thanks before storing her umbrella and taking in her surroundings. The inside of the studio was startlingly dark, despite the many bright neon lights, and thanks to this the brilliant glow of the penguins’ Time Piece case was almost immediately noticeable.

Still painstakingly carrying it on their backs, they had boarded a huge scissor lift, fitted with wheels and a set of tracks to guide it. One penguin hit a lever, sending the lift into the next room and out of sight. When it returned, the penguins and Time Pieces were gone.

The terraced metal floor created a simple enough path to the lift, though the black abyss below was a bit unnerving. She’d never been particularly afraid of heights, but even with her Badge, falling off looked like a death sentence. Minus the occasional clothes rack or pile of crates here and there, the edges were completely open. One wrong move and she was a goner.

The first two steps were bare, lit only by a few video lights. A glance at the next few revealed penguin guards, holding bright red flashlights that cut through the darkness. The nearest one was pacing around, talking into their phone about set pieces.

Hat Kid barely avoided being noticed by all of them, though the first may have caught a glimpse of her foot, and cautiously crossed the final platform. Nearby, DJ Grooves directed his actors on some sort of flashy disco set, complete with enormous speakers blasting music. She was sure that there were lyrics, too, but they were being drowned out far beyond discernibility.

Thankfully, the booming song completely drowned out her footsteps, and the DJ’s chair was too tall for him to easily see her (how did he even get up there?), so it was pretty much just a cake walk—

“ _Darling_ , what are you _doing_?” Her heart leapt into her throat and she froze. Had she been caught?! She couldn’t afford to go to bird jail! Quick, think of something... uh... maybe if she didn’t move he’d just... forget about her, or something? “Get out of the set, _pleaaaase_.” Confused a little by his tone, Hat Kid slowly turned her head to eye Grooves. Ohh! He’d been scolding one of his actors!! Obviously! Eheheh...

Releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and sticking her tongue out at one of the many ‘no humans allowed’ signs, she finally reached the lift, sending it over to the Conductor’s set with a clean whack.

His newest film appeared to contain much more action than Grooves’s, and, also, to be a “train-related western”. Several owls wearing bandit masks and loaded with bags of, supposedly, money, rode cardboard horses to nowhere, a coal-black cutout of a train pumping out smoke in the distance. The whole set was moving, creating the illusion that the train and owls were actually going somewhere. Or, it would after the footage was edited, at least. A shimmer coming off of a nearby structure caught her eye, and thanks to some quick parkour she soon obtained another ball of yarn.

She recognized this type of yarn. Mainly purple, with a band of yellow holding a couple of bubbling vials. She’d already gotten a couple from Mafia Town. These ones reminded her of her Top Hat!

An unnecessary number of owls and cameras made the normal path impossible to cross without being spotted, but an incredibly thick pipe underneath created an excellent alternative. After climbing back up and donning her Sprint Cap to dodge a quickly pacing bird, she paused to take another look around.

In front of the girl towered the facade of a building, a clock sloppily painted onto its features. Water towers were on either side of it, emerging eerily from the abyss. It didn’t seem to be a set. Maybe it was just to set the mood?

Accidentally assaulting a cactus, Hat Kid snuck in, diving into the center of the room to avoid the owl guards. Two of them stood stationary in front of some elevator doors, making entry impossible. Eh, whatever. It probably wouldn’t be important later, and she could see another lift thingy up ahead, anyways!

Bypassing some more owls and collecting a few yarns that were just lying around, she made it back over to the moon penguins’ half, where their director was filming, like, exactly the same scene. The only real difference was that his chair was now perched precariously on a tiny platform, which itself was supported by only one pole from the depths below. Seriously, how did he get on?? Penguins couldn’t fly!

Grabbing a coin from a treasure chest half buried behind clothes racks, she used the nearby staging and sandbags to cross back over. The Conductor, thankfully with less security this time, sat barking orders at his once again entirely-cardboard set. This one contained a few teepees, tomahawks and arrows being shot at each other presumably by two off-screen warring factions.

“Cooome onnn. Bring a better performance than the _penguins_ , at least,” groaned the Conductor. It was obvious why, as his “actors” were all simply standing around, looking confused— but after talking to the other owls at the reception, she couldn’t really blame them. Were they even getting paid?

The path dead-ended at the owls’ set, but the room’s exit was only a few yards away! She could spot tracks coming out of it. There had to be a lever around here somewhere...

Ah-ha! It was on a platform below! But an owl was watching the switch closely. She’d need to create some sort of distraction...

Well, noises were distracting, right? And judging by the combination of the Conductor’s shouting and the sound effects echoing across the studio, it’d need to be fairly loud. All she needed was something to make it. Her eyes landed on a wooden crate labelled fra-gi-le (must be bird language), stationed right on the edge just above the lower platform. Perfect! It was heavy enough to make a decent racket, plus she wouldn’t have to push it very far. The only problem was, it looked sturdy enough that it might not break upon impact. If that happened, it might not create a big enough distraction, or worse, get her caught!

Just in case, she’d better find a way to weaken it. But how? Hm... wait, mother had enchanted her umbrella with ice magic or something. She knew from experience that ice was loud... and fragile.

Plus, she hadn’t used the parasol’s new ability yet, and she was pretty curious. Hat Kid pulled out her umbrella, staring at it for a moment before hesitantly touching its tip to the box. It only took a few seconds for white frost to crawl out, fractals spreading over every surface with a low crack.

In all honesty, the transformation had been a little unnerving... but cool! She put out a hand to touch the box. The ice layer was thin enough that she could still feel the texture of the wood underneath, so hopefully it wouldn’t add enough weight to destroy the platform once it landed. Taking a deep breath, she put her shoulder up against the crate, pushing it over the edge. Turning, she quickly slammed her eyes shut and covered her ears, wincing at the faint crash behind her. Fine... she was fine. It was just a box. _Not a statue._

Peeking over the rim, she winced at the pile of splinters, ice shards, and broken props scattered next to the sad remains of the crate. The guard had shifted their attention, hastily trying to salvage items and spluttering into a walkie-talkie. She felt a little bad, making them clean up her mess, but sometimes you just had to make sacrifices in the name of stealth.

Thanks to her Hover Badge, HK easily made it down to the lever, flicking it as quickly and quietly as possible. After checking to make sure the owl hadn’t noticed the lift being summoned, she hit the switch again, diving over to the departing transport and glancing back. The distressed bird disappeared behind the wall.

The scissor lift came to a stop next to another set, just in front of a metal grate that one of the moon penguins stood behind. Using some nearby giant speakers, she passed them unnoticed, using her better vantage point to figure out where to go.

The penguin director was filming to her right, though she couldn’t tell what. The actors danced on top of a lit-up sign with “GROOVES” lettered in a fancy font, fiery sparklers shooting into the air. What genre was this supposed to be, again?

Grooves’s set led nowhere, so Hat Kid headed the other direction, snagging a yarn on the way. She could easily see another lift over there! The problem was, the path to it was completely compromised by penguins and cameras, which were recording for some reason. Their red recording lights shone across the path, making it impossible for her to cross without being spotted.

A distraction wouldn’t work, this time— cameras didn’t get distracted— but the fuse box, sparking dangerously on a wall, gave her an idea. Cameras couldn’t be distracted, but they _could_ be turned off. Tampering with the power and using her Sprint Hat gave the girl enough time to make it to the next lift, while one of the penguins stumbled around in the dark trying to find the fuse box. It certainly didn’t help that they refused to take off their dark glasses.

This transport moved much more slowly than the rest, giving Hat Kid time to observe the two directors filming. Each was in their own little room, with the wall nearest her made of clear glass. Though this made it easy for her to look in, it also allowed the birds inside to look out, so she hid behind the lever at the back.

Wait a minute. Hadn’t she _just_ seen Grooves? Now that she thought about it, how were the two directors moving from set to set so quickly? Considering how much frustrated shouting she overheard when she passed, she would have thought that it would take them a while to get the perfect take, and she couldn’t see any alternative route to move from room to room, either.

Eh, whatever. She didn’t know much about movies, so she wouldn’t question it.

The girl disembarked near what looked to be one of the Conductor’s sets, though filming hadn’t yet begun on this one. The ground was covered in sand, and cacti props were set off to the side, likely to be properly set up once the birds began filming here. It was kind of funny, since the studio was literally located _in_ a desert. Surely creating the sets out there would look a bit more realistic? Perhaps it was too unpredictable, or hot or something.

After knocking over a teepee to serve as a makeshift bridge, Hat Kid found herself on a platform bordered by metal grates, which was also blanketed in sand for some reason, and easily climbed over the fencing. The other side was lit by a fake UFO, modeled in a typical disk shape. It was affixed to the ceiling with a pole, light pouring out of the bottom to imitate a tractor beam. It reminded her of the time that guy had called her an alien! If she were an alien, she could totally sue this place for mockery of off-planet life and get all of their Time Pieces. Darn.

A little further ahead, more fencing created a hallway that was being patrolled by a moon penguin. It wasn’t wide enough for her to pass by them, but luckily there was a little nook in the wall for her to hide in. She quickly slunk around the corner while the bird’s back was turned.

From the ledge she now stood on, Hat Kid could see the next room, which was thankfully much more open and well-lit than the rest of the studio. Then again, she’d snuck in, so she couldn’t really complain. It contained a ramp that led downwards and cut off abruptly, leading absolutely nowhere for anybody who entered the room normally. Not very useful in literally any other situation... but it would probably lead her straight to the exit!

As she slowly walked up, Hat Kid looked around. The whole place felt... fake. Long, scarlet curtains hung down on all sides, but she was pretty sure they were just wallpaper. Gaudy stars hung in the air, but they were attached to long wires and, knowing DBS, probably made of cardboard. Heck, even the red carpet wasn’t real, just painted onto the surface of some blocks too lightweight to truly be made of marble. The place also reminded her of the Mafia Boss’s throne room, which wasn’t helping.

“Magnificent! Stunning! This trophy is everything I desire... on the shelf in my living room!” She jumped, only just now noticing DJ Grooves dancing in place a few feet away. It was too late to go back into the studio... maybe if she just stood still, he wouldn’t notice her? “Of course, this big trophy is just a plastic replica! The actual trophy is really tiny!” Hat Kid gaped at said statue, which was outrageously large for just a _replica_. She had to crane her neck all the way back to see the whole thing!

In doing so, as was her luck, she forgot about her currently equipped Sprint Hat, which promptly fell off of her head with a quiet thump. Though small, the noise was enough to draw the penguin’s attention.

“Oh my! Oh my! What is that I see? Is it true inner beauty? An innocent soul with a heart of gold?” She picked up her hat, nervously switching it back to her signature topper. At least he didn’t sound mad.

“Oh, no. It’s just a little girl. Hello! Oh wait, you’re not a penguin. That’s good! I could use some non-penguin company around here, as all my penguins are frankly terrible actors!” Wait, he wasn’t suggesting she ACT, was he?! She’d probably be even worse than the birds!

“Here’s the biz: I need your help. I’m on a terrible losing streak, and I just HAVE to win this next **annual bird movie award**. There’s no doubt; I absolutely MUST have you as the star!” Hat Kid was flattered, but she shook her head. Juggling two missions at once was hard enough— she didn’t need acting in movies added to her schedule.

“No? You don’t have stage fright, do you, darling?” No! Well, actually, maybe she did, considering how the fight with the Mafia Boss had gone...

The DJ took a step back, putting a flipper to his chin in thought. “You’re that little girl that broke into the studio, right?” Wait, he DID know? She froze. “They’ve been blaming everything they can’t explain on you. Knocked over props, power outages, fallen sandbags... you’ve racked up a pretty hefty bill, darling.” She paled at the paper he pulled out. 127,500 Pons?! She wasn’t even responsible for, like, half of the stuff on that list! “So, how about this. If you act in my upcoming movies, I’ll take care of all that debt! No harm done. And hey, I’ll even let you take home some of our new props when we’re done filming!”

Hold on, was he talking about the Time Pieces? Well... if she was still getting her job done, it was probably okay. And she _was_ kinda curious about what starring in a movie would be like...

“...okay,” she relented, watching in relief as the director tore her bill in half.

“Wonderful!” He jumped into the air, landing behind a cutout of a toll booth. “But first, we need to give you a bird passport, darling! Step right over here.” She walked over, raising an eyebrow at him through the window in the cutout. “The most important part of a passport is the picture, darling! You have to look flashy and stunning! Step right over here. Let’s take the pic.”

She did as told, positioning herself across from the DJ’s camera. “OK, put on a smile, and stand still, please! Don’t move!” A few seconds ticked by in silence. Uhh... was it broken? Just as she was about to move, a bright flash stunned her. “Let’s see how the picture turned out...”

“WH-WHA?!”

The penguin stepped out of the booth, a mildly horrified expression on his face. “Darling, you’re not very photogenic, huh?” She frowned. Was it _that_ bad?

“We’ve gotta fix this ugly mugshot up with some old-fashioned photo doctoring! Here, take these markers and turn yourself into the most stylish, fashionable young lady!” Hat Kid grabbed the photo, looking herself over. The picture was fine, honestly, but Grooves seemed dead set on her changing it and it _could_ use a little more pizazz...

Luckily, she was basically a professional artist, at this point! A few strokes changed her expression to a much cuter wink, and she added some multicolored stars in the background for extra flair.

“Perfect! Let’s slide this picture into your passport, and... here you go! One passport for you!” He handed her an official-looking booklet, made of navy-blue faux leather. ‘PASSPORT FOR THE FEDERAL UNION OF BIRDS’ was printed on the front, along with their emblem. Did this mean she was legally a bird?

“Wonderful, darling! Just wonderful! Meet me at the movie set tomorrow, and we’ll make you a star!” Grooves beamed, sliding away.

The girl watched him leave before storing her new passport. Was she allowed to leave the same way he had? She couldn’t see any other exits...

“ **HEY! WHATCHA THINK YER DOIN?!** ” She turned, startled, to see the Conductor stomping towards her.

“Ohh, yer can’t just jump in and fiddle with the **annual bird movie awards**! That’s fraud! FRAUD! Hey everyone, we’ve got a FRAUDSTER OVER HERE!” Hat Kid stared wide-eyed at the owl, confused and cringing slightly at his volume. Had he been spying on them?

The director waited expectantly, but nothing happened. “WHERE ARE MY OWL GUARDS AT?! Why are the owls so darn useless?!” he lamented, eying the girl in front of him. “Alright, listen here, lass! Yer in big trouble. If you’re helping crooked DJ Grooves rig the awards, and I can’t take yer to jail, then yer gotta help me even the score!”

Oh no.

“That’s right, yer gotta be the star of my movies, too!”

She groaned. How was hiring another actor even ‘rigging the awards’ in the first place?

“Here, hold our **newest prop** , practice showing it off, and bring it to my movie set tomorrow! Yer got that? Don’t be late!” barked the Conductor, shoving a Time Piece into her hands and rushing off. Well that was... bizarre. Hopefully this meant he’d also give her some hourglasses for starring in his movies, at least.

Hat Kid put away the Time Piece, slowly trudging towards the door. This was going to be interesting.

And exhausting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll admit it, I’m having wayyy too much fun with Badge Seller-Hat Kid interactions. They weren’t even going to be that important to the story at first but now I feel like I have to change that...
> 
> Happy New Year :)


	20. The Golden Vault (and Co.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gold, red, blue, green.  
> Colors so pretty.  
> What could they mean?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey, I’m a bit late but a couple days ago was this story’s anniversary! Unfortunately, I don’t have a particularly exciting chapter for it, but we are getting close to the good stuff ;)
> 
> I know we just got out of Mafia Town, but HK had some time to kill and I don’t have time to waste time. The story isn’t going to be particularly linear, anyway. We’ll be jumping between areas a lot.
> 
> This chapter does contain a bit of lore, though, and the next will have even more! I hope y’all don’t mind, heh.

The exit was practically hidden behind the studio’s huge trophy replica, but Hat Kid easily found her way out after watching the two bird directors leave. The room it led to was fairly spacious, with a projector near one wall and a long table in the center. Most of the seats were pretty standard swivel chairs, but at each end of the table they became more... personalized. One looked like an egg, covered in glitter and blinking lights, while the other had been replaced by a wooden rocking chair, topped with steer horns. She figured that these belonged to DJ Grooves and the Conductor, respectively, each presumably trying to one-up the other but sit as far away as possible. Why wasn’t she surprised?

Some quiet tapping shifted the child’s focus to the middle of the table. Looking faintly miffed, Cooking Cat sat in a swivel chair, typing something into her phone. “Cookie!” she exclaimed, drawing said cat‘s attention.

“Oh! Hello there, sugar. I was just about to come find ya, actually. My business is done! I uh, I think.” Hat Kid took another glance at the room.

“...what was it?

“The business? Well, I’m a... chef! The Mafia don’t pay me, and a cat’s gotta make a livin’ somehow. We were thinking of collaboratin’ with the directors here, you know? But in all honesty, I think they’d have more trouble workin’ with each other than me,” she sighed. “Anyhow, they had to cut the meeting short to... stare at a statue, I think? I’ll have to come back later.” It was probably for the best. The feline had been getting fed up with having to look back and forth between the directors, and their constant bickering prevented much from getting done. “So, you get whatcha wanted?”

Hat Kid paused, thoughtfully. Had she? She’d gotten a Time Piece out of it, at least. And she’d been offered the opportunity to get more! But she still wasn’t any closer to finding her father. She didn’t actually know much about him, except that he owned a lot of books. Was there a library around here somewhere, maybe? Augh, she was getting distracted.

“Um... kinda?”

“Ha! I s’pose we could both use that description, huh? You know, an owl came in here during my meeting, saying somethin’ about a little girl breaking into the studio. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would ya?” The girl didn’t answer this time, but her shaky smile and nervous chuckle was enough of an answer for CC. “Thought so. You ready to go back? I think we’ve both overstayed our welcome.” HK nodded, following the chef through a couple of hallways and crossing through a dressing room or two. In a few minutes, the pair was back in the lobby, though not before bursting through the Conductor’s doors and frightening the owl guarding them. While Cooking Cat tried to calm them down, Hat Kid noticed that the Receptionist was no longer at his desk, to her relief. She wasn’t sure if he’d gotten the memo about DJ Grooves paying her bill, and frankly, she didn’t want to find out.

As they left, she waved at the owl whom she remembered had been stressed about their job. They awkwardly waved back. She noted, with a grin, that her cookie had been reduced to a few crumbs in their lap.

The cab was already waiting outside, this time with a tired old owl at the wheel. Cookie had called it up on the way, not wanting to add waiting for it to the already long drive back to the port. Before getting in, Hat Kid edged over to the studio’s outer wall, holding the tip of her umbrella to it just long enough to spread a small amount of ice. Mother had told her to do so whenever she travelled to a new area. It would give Vanessa a reference point for where to link up a new ice platform! Otherwise, she might accidentally create one in an undesirable place, like underground or on someone’s head.

With that out of the way, the girl dashed over to the taxi and hopped in, watching out the window as Dead Bird Studio shrank to a dot on the horizon. There wasn’t much else to see in this part of the desert, so she sank back into her seat with a contented sigh. It was nice to finally sit down... the car was a little stuffy, but that just made her feel tired, and the low rumble of the engine was putting her to sleep...

...until she realized it was slowly being replaced by a rhythmic chug.

“Hat Kid, look!” CC half-yelled over the increasingly deafening noise, pointing out the window. She turned just in time to catch a massive train, towering over the car like a giant. The locomotive let out a hollow whistle, pumping out clouds of black smoke much like the version on the Conductor’s set. That mock-up had hardly prepared her for actually witnessing the real thing, in person, grandiose and impressive and _powerful_.

The last train.

There had been trains all over the place, once. All different sorts. She imagined people must have been able to hear nothing but trains, in those days, if they were this loud.

They were all gone by now. The need for trains had dwindled, replaced by now-forgotten technology. This was the only one left. Or, more accurately, the final _steam_ train. The Metro and a few other places had trains, technically, though they were pulled and thus could not travel as long a distance as this one. Neither could they be so _enormous_.

The taxi and train moving in opposite directions only made the locomotive seem faster, and before she knew it the metal monster was gone.

“It sure is a beauty, huh? Too bad that Conductor hardly ever uses it properly. The last time I tried getting on, it took three hours to get to my stop! It should’ve been half an hour, tops, but he kept making random stops to get ‘movie inspiration’. Those poor Express Owls are too timid to object.”

The train was only enough to keep her awake for a short while. Hat Kid tried to focus on Cookie’s words, but her eyelids were getting _reaaallly_ heavy... maybe she’d just... close them... for a second.....

**——————————————————————————————**

She opened her eyes to a gentle nudge from CC. “Time to wake up, hon.” The feline took her hand, leading the groggy girl off of the boat. Boat? How had she gotten here? She must have fallen asleep in the car. Had Cookie... carried her? Suddenly, the tiredness was gone, and she flushed red. She was a big girl! She could walk by herself!

Cooking Cat didn’t notice the girl’s embarrassment. She continued to walk a little ways inland, coming to a stop in front of the boardwalk restaurants. “Well, I’d best be getting back to work! If you need me, I’ll be up in the Mafia HQ,” she stated. Still a little red, Hat Kid gave a short nod, and watched the cat walk off. She caught herself missing the warmth of Cookie’s paw, only making herself more embarrassed. She needed to distract herself! Something productive to do. Hmmm. Were there any more Time Pieces around here?

Her hat answered for her, spinning the girl to focus on a large, golden vault. It was stationed on a ledge jutting out of the town’s central tower. She’d seen similar safes all over the island, though of varying colors and sizes. Each had several vault codes scattered nearby, though she’d only managed to open the red one so far. She hadn’t really been trying too hard, though, so maybe today would be the day she’d find out what the Mafia were keeping in them!

The tower was rather high up, so Hat Kid wasn’t sure what the best way of getting there would be. Luckily, one of the nearby docks had an ice platform that looked like it would take her in the right direction! Switching to her ice beanie, the girl hopped on, bouncing off of a second panel before landing at the tower. Perfect!

So close to the town’s staple geyser, the sound of rushing water was almost as deafening as the train. She sure hoped her hearing wouldn’t suffer too much from so many loud noises.

The golden vault shook and jittered as if something inside it was trying desperately to escape. It must have been the Time Piece, but the notion was a little frightening. As far as she knew, Time Pieces were just hourglasses. Even if they had the ability to manipulate time, it didn’t make much sense for them to move on their own, let alone be aware that they were locked up in a vault.

...it was probably fine.

The child tapped the safe, causing streamers of light to fly out in all different directions. It didn’t seem very efficient that each vault gave clear directions to its codes, but she was grateful for the help nonetheless.

She found the first near an alleyway, the one where she’d crashed. The spot was marked by a wide hole in the tarp she’d fallen through. The code had been on the other side of a ramshackle house, a spot she hadn’t explored before. Ivy covered the building’s weathered brick walls, weaving in and out of cracks and wide gaps. The inside was dim and a little damp from sea breeze, light filtering in through a couple of holes in the ceiling. It was obvious from the torn wallpaper and piles of gunk that no one had lived here in a long time, not permanently. She couldn’t help but wonder who it had been, and what happened to them. Had the _Mafia_ done this? Where were the original inhabitants?

She found the second at the plaza, caught on one of the pennant strings. The fountain was _still_ broken, she noted, although at least someone had finally piled a few rocks into the gap to slow the leakage. The girl also noticed sticky liquid spilled all over the cobblestone, most abundantly near a building marked ‘Juice Bar?’. It made sense to assume the stuff was juice, but its weirdly metallic sheen made her doubtful. The neighboring restaurant, ‘Spicy Buns’, was sealed off with caution tape, a notice out front informing her that the cooks purportedly hadn’t turned off the stove and the buns “got too spicy”. Judging from the smoke billowing out from between its doors, that meant the place had caught fire. Conversely, the other side of the plaza held a building labeled ‘Big Valve Engineers’, with sandbags hastily stacked against its glass doors barely holding in a flood of water. It seemed to her that the market was filled with problem after problem, some far more disastrous than others, and yet for each the Mafia simply created a temporary solution and called it a day. No wonder the island was such a mess...

She found the third next to a tall wooden tower with four open layers, the uppermost one being where she’d chased that goofy Mafia guy. She took an opportunity to rest in a chair on the third level, overlooking the beach below. Tents and tables were scattered about, while mafiosos relaxed in the sun. It was almost serene... Almost. She’d only dared to have the thought for a second before the calm was broken by a shout. “Hey! Old man!” One of the Mafia on the beach was sneering at someone standing on the roof of a nearby building, which had one of the town’s signature spouts attached to it. The person in question was too far away for her to see clearly, but were definitely not one of the goons, and as such, intrigued her. “Old man hasn’t paid tax for week yet. Must pay! Boss’s orders.” The response was too quiet for her to hear. “No! Time is up! If man won’t pay... Mafia will make him pay!” She grimaced as the entire beach-full of Mafia closed in on the person, who scurried into the building behind them. As she left, the goons’ pounding on the door echoed in her mind. Mafia Town really was a dangerous place. She’d almost forgotten.

She found the fourth on a boat, the S.S. “None-of-your-business!”. Several crates from ‘Mafia Co.’ were piled up on the deck— judging from the smell, they contained fish. It was by far the largest boat on the island, and the only one given the privilege of a name. It was very well kept, almost suspiciously so, as if the ship were more for appearances than to make actual shipments. It undoubtedly belonged to the Mafia Boss. The vessel was large enough to carry the entire island’s mafioso population, and she had a feeling that, at one time, it had. After all, the goons hadn’t always dominated Mafia Town, and she knew they couldn’t swim. Nonetheless, the boat surely hadn’t been used since then. The Mafia were here to stay.

Hat Kid made her way back up to the golden vault, shuffling the codes into the order she deemed correct. Once satisfied, she turned the vault’s dial to match each printed number, and presto! The safe opened, causing its Time Piece to shoot out to freedom. In fact, said Time Piece began to dart all across town erratically, coming very close to crashing multiple times.

She eventually managed to catch it at some docks below the plaza, with the help of her sprint hat. She hadn’t been here before. Another faucet was at the end of this pier, sticking out of the water. It was connected to a pipe, which held an orangey, shifting substance. What were those things for, anyway?

The girl pocketed a token from a chest on the docks, before using a ladder to make it back to solid land. She headed to her left, where a bright green vault stuck out from the dull rocks it sat on. This was the last one! She’d already opened the blue vault while hunting for golden codes. In front of the green safe was a cannon, pointed towards doors guarded by Mafia. She’d used some similar ones a couple times before, since they allowed for fast travel to the other sides of the island. Though, they’d shot her straight through the town’s central geyser, which was a sensation she didn’t fancy experiencing unless necessary.

There were six codes in total, all of which were fairly close by and easy to find. Hat Kid didn’t pay much attention to them, until she reached the last.

The paper itself was unremarkable, but it had been caught between some rocks right next to a cave. The alcove was so shallow that it was more of an overhang, really, but its most prominent features were a lit fire and the words ‘MAFIA SABOTAGE’ scrawled on the wall in red chalk, several tally marks below it. Signs warning others to “sod off” or something similar filled the surrounding area, and on the side of a rock a mocking graffiti of the Mafia Boss was covered in darts. The place had Mustache Girl written all over it. The thought made her tear up.

Mu didn’t _live_ here, did she? Alone, in a cold cave, with hardly any protection against the elements... she didn’t want to believe it. But it made sense. Mu had always acted like a lone wolf, even when they had been working together, and Hat Kid doubted Mu had any parents or guardians around. Except for maybe the “old man” the mafioso had been talking to earlier, she’d never seen any non-Mafia residents.

She sighed. This place was more depressing than anything. She understood, now, why Mustache Girl had wanted to use the Time Pieces and stuff. But time travel could be disastrous and unpredictable, and she’d seen what those things did to people. The Mafia Boss probably hadn’t been the best person before, but she was pretty sure he’d gone a little crazy towards the end of their fight.

Speaking of, she wondered if Mu had found any hourglasses since their last meeting. A pile of junk was heaped in one corner of the alcove, and rummaging through it she indeed found a Time Piece, plus a ball of yarn. She felt kind of bad for taking them, but it was for Mu’s own good! And maybe just a _liiiittle_ bit of payback for pickpocketing half of her pons.

Once she opened the safe, collecting the pons and coin it held, Hat Kid wasn’t sure what to do. There was still some time to kill before the day was over, and she wasn’t too keen on returning home earlier than needed. Mother was still angry with her, and she wanted to give her as much space as possible.

So, she resolved to walk along the coast, watching water lap against the chunks of stone. It was peaceful, down by the ocean. The chaos of the town hadn’t quite reached it, yet, and there were no Mafia around. Even the normally aggressive crows ignored her when she passed! Maybe that was why Mustache Girl chose to stay there. Living in town seemed too much a hassle, especially when you got yourself into trouble with its main inhabitants as often as she did.

The child used her ice hat to cross one of the island’s river-waterfalls, continuing to walk across the rocks for a few feet until she reached the beach. She’d last seen it only half an hour ago, but in that time the place had somehow become uncharacteristically empty, void of Mafia, seagulls, and even hermit crabs. The sun, just beginning to set, cast long shadows over the sand. She’d never imagined a beach could be so... _eerie_.

Hovering near one of the tents, a purple orb emanated a faint glow, crackling with electric energy. She was almost certain it hadn’t been there before. The very fabric of time felt... warped, around it. A large pillar was next to the orb, similar in appearance to the handles of a Time Piece. She squinted at it. That... wasn’t there ten seconds ago, right? She couldn’t remember. Magenta crystals were starting to form too. Those were _certainly_ new, and yet her memory was drawing a complete blank.

Something was wrong. Strange things were slowly spreading from the sphere like some kind of infection, deforming the increasingly dark beach. She had to do something!

Pulling herself up to the top of the tent, Hat Kid lunged at the orb, swinging her umbrella with all the strength she could muster. It made contact.

And time froze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a few liberties here... I just think that Subcon’s purple rift is really cool and I wish they’d done something similar with the others, ok?


	21. A Grand Voyage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid sees some old faces. Or... not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *record scratch* Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got here...

Mafia City was the place to go if you liked low wages, inedible food, and smog-filled streets. Life here was simple; wake up, eat, work, sleep, and start over again. There wasn’t much else to do. Naturally, this meant it was home to the disorganized crime group known simply as the Mafia.

Members of the Mafia could be found anywhere, if you looked hard enough. They had a knack for getting lost on different continents and in distant kingdoms, somehow. But no matter what, their home base had always been the city, and it was here that Jonathan found himself working a dead-end job as the “mop boy”.

How had he gotten here? It all began with a stolen ticket for the ferry. Mafia City was located on a peninsula, at least for the most part. Over the years it had expanded inland, but the best way to get in was by boat, unless you wanted to spend five hours sitting in traffic. The Mafia, after all, were not particularly well known for being... intelligent. They had only built one road leading to and from the city.

Jon had always been a ‘live life in the moment’ sort of guy. You had to be, when you lived on the streets. He’d never had much money to his name at once, which was ironic since the one thing that kept him going was his desire to become rich. He’d spent too much time being poor to let himself die that way, but after both an honest job and thievery failed, he ran out of ideas. 

Jonathan had technically died at least four times by now, probably more. The problem was he refused to stay dead, and thanks to an innumerable amount of shady deals, about a billion forbidden spells, and a whole lot of body “borrowing”, he always managed to come back. None of it had brought him any closer to wealth, though. Each life he moved from town to town, working the odd job and pilfering what he could to survive, and once he’d made a name for himself, he left. It was nice to be famous, of course— infamous was close enough— but that only made it harder to find work or steal.

This had very much been one of those live in the moment situations. On a whim, Jon swiped a ticket from an old lady, boarded a ferry to Mafia City, and didn’t look back. He’d been to a couple cities before, and expected this one to be no different. City folk kept better track of their stuff, but since pickpockets were common, and there was always a confusing network of alleyways to hide in, the chances of him actually being caught was near zero. 

Mafia City was not _at all_ like those others. The entire coastline had rotting docks jutting out of it, with huge fishing vessels dragging nets through the murky ocean. Windowless blocks of concrete formed a sort of wall around the city, but from their spires and chimneys he guessed they were factories. Its worst feature, however, was that every single mafioso in the entire pecking city looked _exactly_ the same. Wrinkled blue pinstripe suits, plain red ties, sparse facial hair. In a few of the clouded apartment windows stood Mafia women, sporting pink instead. They had different colors of hair, which provided a bit more individuality than the men, but either way Jonathan couldn’t help but feel he’d just walked into a clone factory.

Being the only non-Mafia resident for at _least_ fifty miles, he’d stick out like a sore thumb. There was no _way_ he could steal without being noticed here.

It just so happened that he had arrived during the morning rush hour, and the crowd of Mafia going to work was so turbulent and blue that he’d essentially walked right into the rapids of a river. Goons shoved and bumped everything and everyone in their way, scrambling frantically to get to work. Jon, try as he might, could not escape, and soon found himself being crammed into a large fish packing facility.

By some miracle, he was able to break off from the mob through a side door, slamming it shut behind him. He’d breathed a sigh of relief. Too soon, in retrospect.

“Hey! You! What are you doing in storage room! Is restricted area. Non-Mafia especially not allowed!” Jonathan jerked around, coming face to face with a scowling mafioso. The man had a name tag with ‘MAFIA’ written in sloppy ink. Individuality?! It had to be a manager!!

His eyes darted around, looking for an out, but the eyes of every goon in the apparent storage room were on him. Peck. “Uh... I-I, um, well you see...” He noticed a mop in the corner. “I’m the new janitor...?”

Yes, that was the horribly pathetic backstory to how he’d gotten this job, and for the past five years he’d thought of a million other excuses that would have been much better. But here he was, stuck cleaning the floors like some kind of slave. It was the longest he’d ever had a job, and he was still kind of confused as to how he’d gotten it, but it paid better and more consistently than anything else he’d ever done (which wasn’t saying much) so he’d resigned himself to it. That didn’t prevent him from wishing for more, though. What he needed was a vacation, preferably to a nice tropical paradise on some remote island where he could relax all day without a care in the world.

“MOP BOY!”

He jolted. “I-I wasn’t slacking off!” It was the manager. He briefly wondered if this was the same guy from five years ago. It was hard to tell.

“No matter! Boss wants to see you.” Wait, what? He’d never once properly spoken to his own Boss. Should he be scared? Had they finally realized he wasn’t supposed to work here?

Uncharacteristically nervous, Jon followed the mafioso to the second floor of the factory, where the higher-ups’ offices were. At the very end of the hallway was a large door labeled ‘THE BOSS’, with the company’s smiling sardine logo beneath. The manager left wordlessly. He gulped.

“Mop boy. Have seat.” The Boss looked like a standard Mafia goon but _bigger_ , which was never a good sign. Their brawn was really all they had going for them. He wore a dark navy suit, as opposed to the standard blue, and was hard to make out since he was shrouded in darkness. The room’s lighting was specifically arranged so he’d look like a movie villain or something. Jon was more confused than intimidated by it.

“Mafia planning voyage to expand fishery. Put out poll for leader. Workers chose you. Most memorable appearance, I think.” Poll? Voyage? No one had told him about this! “Mafia will set sail in ten minutes. Don’t be late.”

He couldn’t believe it. Out of nowhere he’d become the captain of his own ship, been given his own crew, and had basically received free reign to do whatever he wanted? Not that he was complaining, but the Mafia needed better methods of selecting authority.

He had few possessions, but he made sure to stuff his entire life’s savings into a crate and grab his old chef’s hat. Cooking had always been a dream of his, though he’d never once in his life, or lives, had the means to follow it. He was essentially a Mafia _Boss_ now, though. He could do whatever the peck he wanted!

Jona— no. The **Mafia Boss** soon arrived at the ship that was now _his_ , all his. She was the most beautiful boat he’d ever seen. He grinned in anticipation as the golden anchor lifted, hardly noticing the cheers and sobs of his crew’s family members down on the docks. He’d always been a ‘live life in the moment’ sort of guy.

The voyage was in reality relatively short, but it felt like it had taken forever. The ship was certainly filled with everything a Mafia could want; lounge chairs to relax in the sun, hunks of meat and piles of fish. But it felt more claustrophobic each day, and even the boat couldn’t live up to that idea of an island paradise.

At last, the words were spoken. “Land ahoy!” Upon hearing them, he had rushed onto the deck, hopping onto a crate to get a better view. It was perfect. A charming little island, covered in lovely white-brick houses, finely trimmed greenery, and surrounded by multicolored hot air balloons. The people living here would surely be nice and welcoming.

That was their mistake.

**——————————————————————————————**

Hat Kid rematerialized on the beach, heaving a heavy sigh as she looked down at the two items in her hands. In one, a Time Piece, which she quickly stashed away, and in the other, a storybook that the rift had bound for her. It told the story of what had happened to the town, or at least most of it. Obviously, not every detail had been shared in the seven pages, but she could fill in the blanks pretty easily.

The girl decided to study it a bit more later. It was approaching dusk, and getting too dark for her to see the pictures properly. Hm. Hadn’t the sun been just setting when she entered? Time must not pass inside of such rifts. It did make sense. Well, at least the crystals and stuff were gone.

“ ** _You!_** ” 

She whipped around to see a... jar? With a face? Sort of. Its eyes were floating in some purple liquid, while a nose and mustache had been attached to the front. Ew.

“So... we meet again. My arch nemesis!” She raised an eyebrow, looking the jar over in confusion. Its voice did sound kinda familiar, but she couldn’t recall ever seeing a talking jar... “... **WHAT?!** You don’t remember me?! How rude!” It hopped around in anger. “It’s me, Boss of the Mafia! Remember? You blew me up in our little indiscretion, and your young ‘friend’ captured my remains in this jar!” She winced. Ah. It was _him_. She hadn’t really expected Mu to make good on that plan. Sure he’d been a total jerk, but she felt this was maybe a _lot_ too far. Wait, how was he even talking without a mouth?! Or living?! _Was_ he alive?

“I’m without a body! I should be furious! But, it is okay. The past is the past, and I’ll accept your **carcass** as an apology.” Uh... she sort of needed that. To collect hourglasses and stuff. So, no. She shook her head. “ **Y-YOU WON’T HAND IT OVER?!** Such nerve on such a small child! If I had hands, I would slap you!” She stuck out her tongue at the Boss, although she kept her distance. He was surprisingly agile as a jar, and she didn’t have time to get into another fight right now.

“Fine! I’ll just buy a new body then! There has to be some poor soul out there who would be willing to trade his corpse for money!” Even if there wasn’t, he could just steal one again. Although, it would be harder to find here in Mafia Town, and he still wanted at least _some_ form of retribution from that rude girl...

A large cart popped into existence out of thin air, sea green in color with a crude sign attached to its handle marked ‘ITEM SALE’.

“I may not look like it right now, but I’m well-travelled. I know the whereabouts of all secrets on this planet!” explained the Mafia Boss, leaning over and dumping the contents of his hat onto the cart. Which included a few paperclips, a _fish_ , and a badge with a trail leading to a red X on it. “Buy my map badge, and I will show you where you can find tokens that will make you rich!” She looked it over in thought. Those big coins? She wasn’t opposed to finding more, but wasn’t sure she wanted to spend money looking for them...

“How much?”

“400 Pons! This thing is valuable, I’m not giving it away for cheap,” he scoffed. Geez. She could technically afford it, though she’d have almost no money leftover. Eh, what the heck. It wouldn’t take her long to earn it back.

  
At the other end of the beach, a hooded figure stood on the second level of the wooden tower, completely hidden in its shadow. They watched, eyes narrowed, as the girl pulled out a pile of Pons, so big that she had to carry it in both arms, and handed them to the Boss, snagging something from his cart. She was dealing with HIM now? Ugh. How could they have ever trusted her.

They’d seen the Mafia Boss on the beach earlier, shouting orders at his confused goons. They’d only meant to hurt him with it, but when they’d hurled a Time Piece at him he had disappeared completely, replaced by that strange ball of purple light. The Mafia had fled, but the figure rejoiced. That miserable nuisance was gone! They’d found a way to get rid of bad guys completely! He was probably in some horrible limbo right now, being tortured endlessly for his crimes.

That is, until that dumb **Hat Kid** showed up, disappearing into the ball and exiting along with the Mafia Boss mere seconds later. The ball had vanished in a flash of light. How could she do that? They’d known she was selfish, but going as far as saving HIM?! He’d tried to kill her!

Maybe she was even worse than they’d thought. Whatever. There wasn’t time to sit around watching this. Mafia Town’s hourglass supply had about run dry, and they needed to get a head start on a new area. Hmm... where was the next boat leaving to the mainland?

**——————————————————————————————**

When Hat Kid got home, Vanessa was standing silently on the porch, staring into the distance. She made no move to acknowledge the girl, and it probably would’ve been a good idea to simply keep walking, but Hat Kid hesitated.

“Um, hey mom—mother. I’m... back.” She didn’t know why she decided to say something, and almost regretted it, but it would be too awkward not to keep talking now so she continued. “I, uh, I got some more Time thingies! Three! I’m getting faster, I think!” No response. She took out the hourglasses, unsure what to do with them. Even with their glow shining into her eyes, the queen didn’t flinch. She carefully kept her cold stare focused on the horizon. Hat Kid tried to follow it, but the snow was too heavy for her to actually make out anything.

...

“...I’m really sorry.” At that, Vanessa’s face faltered, though she quickly steadied it. “I didn’t listen to you. You were right. It’s... it’s my fault that Mu got so mad, and found out what Time Pieces do a-and all that stuff. B-but... please, I’m really trying to fix it! I-I’ll get them all before she does, I promise...” She was starting to tear up, but quickly wiped her face, hoping mother hadn’t seen. She didn’t want her to get even madder...

  
.....

“Put them in the attic.” Hat Kid looked up, startled.

“H-huh?”

“The Time Pieces.” With that, Vanessa walked inside, leaving the doors wide open. Slowly, a grin spread on the girl’s face, and she followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since describing the storybook pages doesn’t lend itself particularly well to this format, I decided to write them as a sort of flashback! Hat Kid doesn’t see the flashback, and she still goes through the actual rift, I just chose to skip that. I tried to keep this chapter on the shorter side since it‘s kind of a test. This is the least important rift for this story, so I really want to get the style down before tackling the others! I’m sure you can guess which one will be the most important ;)
> 
> It isn’t just practice, though. I did want to explain why the Mafia Boss is so old, and plus he can’t sell Hat Kid his badge over at the manor. He’s also named based on his VA, because I’m not creative.
> 
> Please do tell me if you have any suggestions to improve in the future! We’ll get back to movie making next week.


	22. Picture Imperfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hat Kid reaches new heights on her quest to acquire Time Pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, another long chapter to make up for the length of the last two. It was surprisingly really fun to write, so I hope you enjoy reading it!

“GooOoOOood morNinG!” the alarm clock droned. Hat Kid’s arm shot out from under the covers and slammed around her nightstand blindly, trying to shut it off. She only succeeded in knocking the thing to the ground, and with a groan she forced herself to get out of bed.

As she picked up the clock, thankfully still in one piece but certainly even more broken than usual, she noticed something new on her nightstand; a pointed hat with her favorite color combination, purple and gold. The striped ribbon around its base stored two vials, filled with bubbling liquid. It reminded her of the hats that witches wore in fairytales, what with the design and flasks and everything. A note, written in familiar, neat cursive, had been placed underneath.  
  


_I’ll be out today, but here is a new hat. It creates potions that will activate if you remove and shake them._

_Don’t blow up the house._

_-Mother_

She’d always had trouble reading fancy handwriting like this, but managed to get the general gist. It was a little strange, though. By “out”, did mother mean out of the house? The last time Hat Kid could remember her walking more than a foot away was two years ago, and she’d only done so while absolutely furious. Wasn’t that back when father went missing?

She shuddered. Hopefully mother wasn’t so angry this time.

Back to the hat, though. Mother must have looked through her stuff to get the yarns to make it, which was a bit concerning but she got a hat out of it so whatever. The note had said something about it creating potions, which she assumed was what the vials were, but it hadn’t told her what they did, exactly. She glanced at the clock. Maybe she’d test the hat out later.

Today was the first day of filming, though no one had actually told her _when_ to come in. She’d decided to go as soon as possible, to be safe. Stuffing her new hat into her current one, the girl collected her cape and boots, and shuffled downstairs. Breakfast was on the table— cold oatmeal. She took a few bites before dumping it out into the sink and eating a cookie instead. A cookie for breakfast wasn’t the best choice health-wise, but that oatmeal probably wasn’t either.

Outside, the snowfall had lightened up for once, making it easier to see farther. She thought she could make out something in the distance, a block of blue intertwined with strands of purple. It was hard to tell, though.

The ice platform to Mafia Town was still on her left, but a brand new panel had been attached to the balcony right next to it. The new one had a slightly different snowflake design that resembled a circle of birds, and smelled faintly of corporate greed. This must be the platform to Dead Bird Studio! She’d mentioned it to mother last night. Not that she didn’t like spending time with Cookie, but it had taken half of the day just to get to DBS and back. Besides, she didn’t want to bother her friend too often.

With the help of her ice beanie, Hat Kid was back in Sand n’ Sails in no time at all. The desert was surprisingly cool in the morning. She almost didn’t notice, since she’d just come from a much colder area, and while it was an improvement she entered the studio to warm herself up even further.

“You’re here early.” She nearly squeaked at the Receptionist’s voice, who didn’t look away from his computer as he continued. “I was told you got yourself... hired. By Conductor _and_ Grooves. I don’t even know if that’s legal— what are you, ten?— but I guess there’s nothing I can do about it. Just... don’t break anything else? You really raked up a hefty bill there, lil’ chirper.” She nodded nervously, fidgeting a little. The Receptionist finally took his eyes off of the screen. “Filming starts in an hour. Grooves is first, and you’ll get a thirty minute break before the Conductor wants you on set. You can do whatever until then, I guess. The break room is all the way down the hall and to the left if you want some breakfast.” He gestured at Conductor’s door, turning back to his tired typing.

After uncomfortably thanking him, Hat Kid decided to to take the bird up on that breakfast offer. Three bites of gross oatmeal and a cookie had hardly been enough to keep her going for five minutes! She doubted she’d survive a day of ‘acting’.

The “break room” was small, but comfier than the reception, at least. A couple of tables were in the corner. One had a big pitcher of something brownish-black that smelled _awful_ , which she steered clear of, and a transparent dispenser with ice water in it. The other was covered with a whole bunch of different kinds of food that she’d never seen before, but looked _really good_ right now. She ended up stuffing her face, plopping down onto the couch when she was satisfied.

The girl pulled out the script book from the day before, staring at it as she thought. She’d read a decent chunk of it, although she hadn’t completely understood the story. Several words were lost on her, but she was pretty good at putting puzzle pieces together!

From what she could gather, the basic plot was some detectives were on a train heading to Subcon (which was absurd, for the record). While passing through a desert, the train had mysteriously blown up, and one detective went missing. The story was mostly about the other’s search for their partner, which was perfect! She’d just do whatever they did, and find her father lickety-split!

Their first step had been to search a small desert village, where everyone who had survived the explosion was refuged. She didn’t know of any towns in Sand n’ Sails, and even if she did getting to it would be a nightmare, but the studio was close enough, right? The train _had_ to have a stop around here somewhere, and the owls basically survived the Conductor every day, so it’d do. She hadn’t gotten a good look around yesterday, anyway, too busy trying not to get caught.

She retraced her steps, deciding to investigate the several rooms lining the hallway. Many of them were dressing rooms, all of which were luckily empty since it would be a good while before the Conductor started filming. She poked at costumes piled up in boxes and shuffled through messy papers strewn on desks, but ended up empty handed. Everything was written in literal chicken-scratch, and the only thing she’d discovered that was actually legible had been a blackboard with a drawing of a mustache and the words “was here” next to it. She knew exactly what they meant, of course. Mu had left similar messages all around Mafia town, and besides, birds couldn’t grow mustaches. This didn’t make the knowledge any more comforting, however. She’d need to hurry and collect all the local Time Pieces first if Mustache Girl had already been here.

The last room was covered in scraps of fabric and sewing materials, including a few needles and pins which she carefully avoided. She assumed it was for mending and creating costumes. There wasn’t much of interest, excepting a large gumball machine stationed in the back. The girl approached it curiously.

It was hard to tell what was inside. The glass ball containing the prizes was rather cloudy, though she could see they definitely weren’t gumballs. She glanced down at the slot, noticing an image of a coin engraved next to it. Curiously, it looked just like the coins she’d been collecting, and she pulled one out to test if it would fit. She began bouncing excitedly when it rolled in, triggering the machine to vibrate in the same way the glasses dispenser had. A paintbrush tumbled out of the slot. She raised an eyebrow, picking it up and inspecting it. That was unexpected. The brush had blue and yellow paint dripping off of it, the two colors swirling within each other but never mixing into green.

Trying it on various surfaces did nothing. The paint remained firmly on the brush, despite still being very much wet. She pouted a bit, but put it away for now and decided to spend her other two tokens. She might as well, as she didn’t have any other use for them.

The coins bought her another dye, this one red and purple, as well as... a new hat? It was a dinosaur hoodie, green to match her dress, and just holding it she could feel the familiar tug of magic. A little testing revealed it had the same abilities as her sprint cap! Not particularly useful, but the dino was cute. She might swap her normal sprint hat for it sometimes, for purely cosmetic purposes.

“Uhh, lil’ chirper?” The Receptionist’s voice echoed down the hallway. “It’s five to eight, you’d better get up there.” Up where?

She soon found herself rocketing into the sky, soaring through the atmosphere even faster than traveling by ice hat. The small rocket she’d been ushered into quickly entered space, making a smooth arch towards the moon. Hat Kid pressed her face to its circular window, mesmerized by the planet below her. Mafia Town, Sand n’ Sails, and Dead Bird Studio were all visible even from this far up, complete with geyser, train tracks, and parking lot, respectively. She might have been able to see her house from here, if it weren’t for the storm clouds, as well as the vast expanse of dead forest next door.

The rocket landed with a rumble, securing itself onto a structure half launch pad, half parade float. Once the steel scaffolding had clicked into place, the ship’s hatchet swung open. She gawked at the view.

Though distant, Earth could be seen hovering in the background like an imitation sun, surrounded by clouds of stars illuminating the pitch black sky. A square of tall buildings seemed to be reaching towards the planet, while a collection of relatively smaller ones, still as tall as the rocket, stationed themselves in the center. Each was decorated with signs, balconies, and plants, which provided the oxygen that made the moon habitable in the first place, and most were connected by wires that sent out jolts of sound every so often. She had to squint a little at the rows of bright windows, which hurt her eyes in the dark environment.

The amplified voice of a certain movie director reminded her of why she’d come in the first place. “Darling! Over here!” Oh yeah... the movie. She still wasn’t thrilled about this whole thing, but the sooner she got it over with, the sooner she’d have another Time Piece for mother.

Activating her top hat and using the roof of the closest building as a better viewpoint, she joined the dancing DJ on a small stage, with a huge poster of himself serving as the backdrop.

“Welcome to the first day of shooting, darling! We need to transform you into the biggest movie star the bird world has ever seen! You need to become... a diva!” He stood still for a moment and did a sort of wave as he said the final word, as if he was expecting something to happen, but nothing did. He held the pose awkwardly, before sighing and muttering “We rehearsed this...” Raising his microphone to his beak, he repeated, “I said _A DIVA_!” This time, microscopic glitter (that would be a nightmare to get out of her clothes) exploded around the stage like confetti, and Grooves’s cool smile returned to his face, albeit slightly strained.

“*ahem* That’s why I’ve called for a press conference here on our moon set. You need to get out there in front of the cameras, and electrify the public, darling! Get ‘em really up and going for your movies!” The director reached into a pocket, pulling out some sort of rectangular box, and tossed it to her. “Here’s a **Phone** , darling. My treat, as you’re acting in my movies! It’ll allow you to see how big your fanclub is. With a little improv, you’ll be the most popular diva this side of the moon! Of course, I myself am fairly well known among penguinkind, so if you ever need a boost just pick up one of the **DJ Grooves Tokens** scattered around our set.” He nodded towards a decal of his face a short distance away, which spun as if it were Grooves himself.

“Once you’ve got them going crazy, come back here and we’ll show off our new prop! That’s right, we’ll unveil our new **movie prop** to the masses!” Ah! The hourglass, hopefully. How would she grow a fanclub, though? She wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers! And the mere thought of so many others watching her was nerve wracking... Nonetheless, she needed that Time Piece, and it was far too late to back out now. She had to at least try, right?

Taking a deep breath, she dropped down and scooted off the edge of the stage, where a small crowd of penguins flanked her on both sides. She summoned her best smile and tried giving them a shy wave. Wow. That was awful. But a whirr from her phone-thing prompted her to check the screen, displaying 7 new additions to her club! If the moon penguins were this forgiving, maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.

Hat Kid made for the token Grooves had pointed out, but was drawn to a glare in the corner of her eye like a moth to a flame. The brightness made it hard to see what it was, but from her experience all the useful stuff was shiny. Instead of a yarn or coin, however, all the girl received was an intense flash flooding her vision, which faded as soon as it came. “Thank you!” Rubbing her eyes, she now saw the flash had been light reflecting off of a penguin’s camera, who was currently waving some self developing film in the air. She caught a glimpse of the photo and frowned at her own startled expression. Yikes. She really wasn’t good at this whole movie star thing, huh?

With somehow 20 more fanclub members to her name, Hat Kid steered herself back on course. The token was placed between a film crew and large fountain, depicting two music notes with a pair of penguin statues balancing gracefully on their stems. It was odd how the overly fancy fountain didn’t fit in at all, and yet fit perfectly at the same time.

She grabbed the token, which was somehow... absorbed...? Into her phone. “You called, darling? Looks like it’s endorsement time!” The director landed in front of her, immediately turning to address the camera. “All you penguins out there know my name... **DJ Grooves**! And I’m telling you, this young girl here is the next hot thing. Guaranteed!” The crew adjusted the camera to focus on something above her, and she followed it to see a hyper realistic standee of a puppy, precariously positioned at the very tip of the fountain. “Just look, as she’ll climb up this statue and rescue the poor puppy that has gotten stuck! Right, darling?” She deadpanned. Come on, that thing was way too realistic to be real! Did he actually think—

Oh. Ohhhh. Right, this was for a movie, or something! She awkwardly nodded and scaled the fountain. The girl reached over to the cutout to pick it up, but it was stuck to the statue. Uh... now what? Grooves coughed pointedly behind her. _Now what?!!_

Hat Kid pulled, pushed, and shook the puppy frantically, but it remained fixed to the statue. She was starting to panic. Was there a time limit to this? What if she couldn’t get it off?!

The girl tugged with all her might, getting more and more aggravated, until at last she let out an irritated growl and whacked the thing with her umbrella. It was satisfying, momentarily, when her hit landed and the fake dog fell down and crumpled. And then it was horrifying. Oh gosh oh gosh oh _CRAP_ , it was broken all over the floor and she’d RUINED the movie and DJ Grooves would HATE her and she’d never get the Time Piece and— “Look at that! She helped the puppy down, safe and sound! Too bad it ran off, and definitely didn’t break into multiple pieces,” the penguin covered for her. She jolted and looked down, startled to see the DJ looking as calm as ever. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“This is truly a diva I can get behind. Let it be known that this lil’ girl is all about animals! Make sure you join her fanclub! DJ Grooves... out!” As he flew into the sky, Hat Kid watched her fan count rise to 269, and by now she was certain the whole thing was rigged.

The girl began to climb off of the fountain, but paused when she noticed something floating towards her. It was... a UFO? The thing’s design resembled the large flying-saucer-shaped light she’d seen in Dead Bird Studio, albeit much smaller. It was about the same size as her, and she thought briefly that she would very much like to own a spaceship someday.

It was unclear what exactly the UFO _was_ , which was technically the whole point but still. Was someone piloting it? Was it an _alien_? Was it even real? This was a movie set, after all. And why was it bobbing towards her? The thing almost seemed aggressive, despite how slowly it was moving. She was too high up for it to reach, but that didn’t stop it from bumping into the statue over and over while trying. Hmm. That made it unlikely anything was actually driving, but you could never be sure. Just to be safe, she’d better stay away.

Using the saucer to bounce onto a clothesline, she tightrope-walked over to a shop called “HATS BUY”. It sounded like a fantastic store, to her, but unfortunately due to the current filming she doubted it was open, if even a legitimate business.

The girl let another paparazzi photograph her, this time much more prepared, and recruited a group of bystanders before she found a second token. This one was in a weird alleyway-looking corner, next to two penguins having an argument. Or, maybe a discussion? It was hard to tell, since everything they said had an intimidating note to it. She shrugged and walked up to the token.

“You called, darling? Looks like it’s endorsement time!” Grooves fell from the sky once more, landing in a shallow crater. How the heck was he doing that? “All you penguins out there know my name... **DJ Grooves**! And I’m telling you, this young girl here is the next hot thing. Guaranteed!” The penguin subtly ushered her to make some sort of pose, and she hesitantly put her hands to her hips in a superhero stance. “Look at how street-smart this diva is. She’s standing in this sinister alleyway, right next to some potential wrongdoers!”

Realizing he was talking about them, the pair that had been conversing turned to Grooves, looking about as confused as Hat Kid felt. “Danger is her middle name, and she’s not afraid to step outside of her comfort zone!” What! No it wasn’t! Her middle name was... well, she didn’t know, but it wasn’t Danger! Hopefully. “Make sure you join her fanclub! DJ Grooves... out!” She stared into space, trying to see where the director had gone when he jumped, but the second she blinked he was gone. Figured. She spared the phone a glance before leaving, finding— ten _thousand_ fans?! There weren’t even that many penguins here!

She continued wandering rooftops and streets, the fanclub getting so absurdly enormous at this point that she stopped paying attention. Instead, she focused on not getting hit by the cars racing around corners and weaving between streets. Seriously, there HAD to be _some_ law against this! It was a major safety hazard! One road even had an entrance to “Metro” smack-dab in the middle of it, forcing cars to swerve violently in order to avoid falling down the stairs. It didn’t even lead anywhere useful, just to some metal bars! Was the designer a sadist???

While fuming about urban design, Hat Kid caught a glitchy, purple particle on the balcony above her. A very _familiar_ glitchy, purple particle.

Making quick use of a nearby spring, she confirmed her suspicions. “ _Ah! Hi there, young one. You are starring in this bird film?_ ” She struck a pose, to which they let out a short, tittering laugh. “ _I hope you don’t mind my intrusion. I was just about to leave. Tomorrow will be a very busy day, for you and I both, I think, and my merchandise has been running low as of late, so I have been restocking. Unfortunately, many of my usual spots are closed due to filming... I really should have seen this coming._ ” She frowned a little at their statement that they were leaving. She’d been hoping for a short break from the movie, but maybe it was for the best. She was on a pretty tight schedule. “ _Oh, yes. Before I go, I acquired this and thought you might like to have it. I have no use for them, and you are my only patron who does._ ” A brewing yarn floated out of their pack, which she accepted with a smile.

“...why don’t you sell it?” They were out of stock, right?

“ _Hm? Well, I am a seller of badges! Not yarn. I only carry other items on occasion, for special customers. And while you are certainly a special customer, I would feel rather bad for making you pay me for something I found a few feet away,_ ” they admitted. “ _Enjoy the moon!_ ”

She located another spring just around the corner, bouncing high enough to grab a telephone wire and swing onto the nearest roof. Immediately noticeable was a DJ Grooves Token, sitting in some kind of nest. A table in the center was covered in various non-child-appropriate objects, surrounded by chairs at varying degrees of buried in concrete. Eggs dressed as moon penguins were arranged in the spots the chairs’ seats would have been, if they weren’t submerged in the roof. She navigated around the setup to get to the token, finding herself “in” the only empty chair.

“You called, darling? Looks like it’s endorsement time! All you penguins out there know my name... **DJ Grooves**! And I’m telling you, this young girl here is the next hot thing. Guaranteed!” A UFO with a camera affixed to it floated after the director, getting a few shots of him and his star before settling itself across the table. “Watch as she beats these hard-boiled card players at their own game... on her first try!” Grooves turned to the girl and pointed at the egg closest to the camera, which had some cards propped in front of it. In a stage-whisper he explained, “This game is easy to understand, darling. You just guess which number of card the other player is holding, from **1 to 10**. Which card do you think he’s holding, darling?”

She took a long look at the cards, furrowing her brows. Two of them were turned toward her, for some reason, but she assumed she was meant to guess the one that wasn’t. Hat Kid couldn’t think of any possible way she could guess correctly _legitimately_... but technically she didn’t have to, she thought, noting how the camera was angled just so that it could see the card.

As discreetly as possible, the girl pulled out her phone, glancing at the current livestream feed. 3 of spades.

“Three?” She ‘guessed’, as convincingly as possible.

“Wow! Fantastic! Incredible! The answer is indeed **3**! Folks at home, you have just witnessed the stunning intuition of a true star.” The camera zoomed in on the card to prove as much, and she quickly hid her phone behind her back. “Make sure you join her fanclub! DJ Grooves... out!”

The fourth and final token was only a hop, skip, and a jump away, but she stopped to talk to a tourist first. Specifically, the one who’d accompanied her and CC to Sand n’ Sails. “The moon is pretty alright, kid. It feels great finally being here after all these years!” He paused to take a series of rapid-fire photos. “But that darn Steve from work sent me a postcard from the sun! He says it’s great! I can’t believe that guy, always trying to one-up me!” She widened her eyes as the tourist became engrossed in his photography. The _sun_? There was no way he could survive that! She wanted to go!

The last token was behind a fairly large table, which was the perfect size to fit a platter lined with several cuts of fish, plus the head and tail of the creature they’d most likely come from.

“You called, darling? Looks like it’s endorsement time!” Grooves pulled her aside instead of continuing with his usual introduction, which she hadn’t expected. “Now, darling, I have to mention this. Cooking show hosts have a terrible track record of getting angry and swearing on-screen. Try not to use the P-word, OK? Don’t say p-e-c-k.” The girl mentally wrote out the letters. ‘Peck’? She’d heard mother use the word a few times, though she’d always brushed it off whenever Hat Kid asked. A few others had also used it in passing, she remembered, and a certain director had used it in every other sentence. “The **Conductor** is old-fashioned. He throws that word around _a lot_. It’ll get him in trouble some day! Until then, let’s keep our show clean.” Grooves flipped on his performance smile like a switch, something Hat Kid could only wish to be able to do, and turned to one of the tripods.

“Hello viewers! Even the biggest celebrities have to eat, and I’ve got with me the biggest celebrity of them all.” He held his microphone up to her, awkwardly unsteady because he refused to stop dancing. “Now tell us darling, what kind of condiment do you like on your tuna sandwiches?”

...

Well she couldn’t _not_ say it.

“Peck!”

“ _ **DARLING** **!**_ ” She grinned up at the shocked DJ, an incredibly satisfied look on her face.

“I-I mean-I mean... fellow viewers! Look at the mouth on this young girl. She’s really something.” He desperately tried to salvage the situation, though his nervous glances at the camera ruined any chance of maintaining his cool facade. “( _Now shoo, get out of this endorsement as soon as you can, before the old penguins watching TV notice what just happened._ )”

Her little stunt earned her more fans than any of her earlier methods, and the numbers were still climbing while she posed for a few paparazzi. An urgent beep from her phone caused the girl to drop her stance and check it. Instead of any tangible number, though, the screen only displayed the blinking words “MAX DIVA”. Maximum... diva? She hardly had time to question it as penguins suddenly swarmed her, and DJ Grooves’s voice began to reverberate across the set.

“The audience is going crazy, darling! Come over here and show off our new stunner... our **new prop**!” With a sigh of relief, the girl ducked under the flailing arms of her fans and sprinted back to the stage. Grooves handed her the Time Piece, and a feeling of peace enveloped her while she displayed the hourglass, making sure to hold it out for the cameras to see clearly. Victory music played from the loudspeakers, and as it faded the whole set began to shut down too.

“Well, that’s all for today, darling! Don’t forget to come back, same time tomorrow.” He opened a door at the back of the stage that had been camouflaged within his poster. “You can go back to the studio the same way you came. Or, if you want, darling, feel free to check out the rest of the moon, just through here! There are plenty of sights to see here on our little satellite. Restaurants, museums, hotels....” he advertised. Hat Kid glanced at her phone. 10:00... well, the Receptionist _had_ said she’d have half an hour between the two movies, and all that running around had made her pretty hungry. She could spare a few minutes!

The girl nodded and started towards the door, causing Grooves’s face to light up. “Wonderful, darling! I’ll give you a tour myself. I just love seeing people experience the moon for the first time!” She giggled a bit at his excitement. “After you, darling.”

With a skip, she passed through.

**——————————————————————————————**

Vanessa stalked along icy streets, between frozen houses with holes gouged through their hearths and past statues with horrified faces. Silence hung over the place as if some dreadful beast was lying in wait, but she was not afraid. There was no monster, not in her home.

The longer she stayed, the less silent it seemed. This was why she rarely visited, anymore. The occasional howl of wind sounded like screams of agony, crescendoing to an unbearable volume before being abruptly cut short. She thought she could hear whispers, but the instant she focused in on them, they were gone. Her footsteps crunched in the snow, and sometimes if she stopped the sounds would continue for a step or two. Flashes of green or yellow— maybe red?— darted behind cottages as she approached. But that was impossible. _There was no monster._ Monsters were for the accursed forest, not her domain.

At last she escaped the winding paths, finding her way to the edge of the village. A great, thick wall, as tall as the manor itself, encircled her kingdom. Once built with bricks of sturdy stone, the original wall had been dashed to pieces, replaced by broad pillars of ice. This was nothing new, of course. She well remembered when the cold had set in, encasing Subcon in eternal winter. This was not what she had come to see.

Deep purple brambles crawled over the wall, stringy and thin but all over the place. She narrowed her eyes, raising a claw towards one accusingly. A dagger of ice burst from the ground in response, slicing the offender in two. The vine withered, and she set to work eliminating the others.

Just what was _**he**_ playing at..?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grooves: Danger is her middle name!  
> Hat Kid: this city layout is so DANGEROUS WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS
> 
> Just a note, the script HK has is VERY loosely based on a book called “Death Train to Boston”, which I have never read. I just thought the name and summary sounded fitting, and I wanted to base it on something because Murder on the Owl Express is a play on “Murder on the Orient Express”.
> 
> Also the child can SWEAR now POG
> 
> I’ve been holding off so far because she didn’t know how, ya’ll better prepare yourselves


End file.
